


Only the Things the Heart Believes Are True

by lalunaticscribe



Series: The Scarlet Thread of Murder Running Through the Colourless Skein of Life [2]
Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Homura goes to London, Magical Realism, Might not make sense, Multi, Not Beta Read, Not Canon Compliant, Other: See Story Notes, Parts of Madoka Magica: The Rebellion Story featured, Rule 63, Technically Speaking, Weird, magical girl au, no sense, scratch that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-30
Updated: 2014-02-08
Packaged: 2017-12-30 22:53:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 31,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1024347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalunaticscribe/pseuds/lalunaticscribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If a wish can traverse time, it can traverse worlds.</p><p>So a harlequin dances across worlds with a white policeman in chase, searching for his Columbine of doctoring and healing and order, the magnetic north of the compass and the lynchpin of worlds.</p><p>Of course, once upon a time, John Watson made a wish he could not regret.</p><p>(Sherlock x Puella Magi Madoka Magica crossover)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Dal Segno

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Hundred Times Over](https://archiveofourown.org/works/671940) by [IShipThem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IShipThem/pseuds/IShipThem). 



> So... I'm back.
> 
> People who've read Here Dwell Together Still might have an idea of what might be going on here. Despite earlier setbacks, I'm back! In black! (not really).
> 
> This does not comply with season two, just to inform. In fact, season two might become downright untenable in this universe. There is going to be superstring theory. Lots of it.

Five...

Four...

Three...

Two...

One...

The Harlequinade opens. The curtain rises.

Columbine stands alone, draped in blue and white. Strings lead from her form to the frame, upon which the Clown makes his marionette dance.

Another frame enters the picture. It leads to Harlequin, who cuts a fine figure of red and black.

Harlequin does not dance. The harlequin improvises, snatching Columbine from her strings and stealing her away into the night, Pantaloon and the Clown giving chase all the while with Pierrot hot on their heels. Harlequin and Columbine dance and dance, until finally the swath comes; trickster and girl lie side by side, falling together. They sleep, only to wake, and the story repeats.

Here we go again.

* * *

Once, the body of Sherrinford Holmes disappeared. Within the next week, Sherrinford's hanger-on Jane Watson was tagging behind Shirley Sigerson.

Once, Sheridan Holmes was a high-profile serial killer. Jack Hammond Watson was the only psychiatrist to accept him. One day, Holmes did a murder-suicide; scientist and subject expired in each other's arms. The dying words of Holmes was puzzling: 'You will never take him from me.'

One memorable occasion, in one particular world, a nineteenth-century thing of swirling fogs and chintz chairs. Sherlock Holmes looked unsurprised, even with the unremarkable form in the room holding a knife to his throat. “I've been expecting you. To whom may I address the salutation?”

* * *

Mortar fire was part and parcel of life in Afghanistan, but John was pretty sure that this was the first time he had ever seen them directed towards demons.

“You do this often?” He asked the mysterious Puella Magi who had just arrived.

Her shadowy wings branched from either side of her back, reflecting the demon's attacks as John evacuated the injured patrol who had stumbled into the miasma. “From time to time,”the Magi responded, brushing a long black lock away from her face. “You... have magic.”

John shook open his backpack, pulling out the highly illegal RPG-7V2 from the bag that technically should not fit inside. “Fitted for HEAT rounds-  high explosive anti-tank,” he translated as the girl looked lost, the weapon in her hand. “I need to drag a few more people out. Give me cover.”

“Understood.” Despite her clear interest, the Puella Magi did not press too much.

“What's your name, anyway?” John shouted as he went for the last one with preternatural reflexes, dragging the moaning and delirious soldier out of the miasma and then running back in, considering the Jezail rifle before deciding for the Webley Bulldog.

“Homura-”

A soft whizzing sound broke John's concentration, and something drew a line of ice across his right hip as he hurdled a small ditch. John stumbled and went to one knee, feeling blood dampening his trousers as he turned and aimed his gun into the sky. He pulled the trigger twice, and one demon plummeted to the ground, its head destroyed by the combination of improbable forces and a. 44 bullet. In the next instant, another arrow slammed into his left shoulder. The force behind it drove John onto his back, and he could see the wraith diving for him, shrieking in triumph-

A soft whizzing sound, and the demon was slaughtered by a violet flash.

“Are you alright?” Homura questioned. Her wings flared, deflecting the rest of the weapons but also leaving them as sitting ducks to a scourge of wraiths. Her tights had been torn, and one heel was missing. The red bow in her fringe drooped; clearly, the Puella Magi was unused to desert conditions.

Numbing cold was spreading from the wound like poison, and the world went dim and soft, like a picture fading out on a television. So cold and dark. So cold and so tired, and he could just close his eyes and slip away...

It's enough... a voice whispered. You can rest... you fought to the last.

He couldn't raise his hand and dig the thing out. He couldn't open his eyes. He felt disconnected from his whole body – it was worn and empty, and he could just cast it away and move on.

Except no, because where would that leave the Puella Magi still fighting?

It's enough. You've given up enough for our world. It's enough...

Slowly, John's eyes dragged to the thing embedded in his flesh. 'Pull it out,' was the only thought that ran through John's head. 'You need to get it out of you.'

Shouldn't touch it – the presence of the arrow could be putting much-needed pressure on arteries and veins to prevent bleeding out

Some deep instinct told him he needed to pull the thing out. In situations like this, John trusted his gut above his head.

John's right hand crept across his chest slowly, fingers wrapping tightly around the arrow. It probably should have hurt – he could feel his grip shifting, nerve endings attached – but then magic numbed the pain to only a numb feeling in every nerve. No bracing. No tensing. No need to make it more difficult than it should be-

The magic string projectile tore free with a wet sucking sound, and John cast it aside.

The terrible cold didn't ease, and within moments John was trembling as though he were lying on permafrost instead of the hellish sands of Afghanistan. Still, he pulled the pack on his back, the one that technically did not exist, and willed himself to ignore the pain to stand with a present in hand.

“Artillery fire!” He called.

Homura jumped back, the wings falling as John aimed the AT-4 and pulled the trigger. Right then, winds shifted and John growled, lugging the last soldier towards the nearest cave. “Cover!”

John's barrier closed after Homura stepped through.

“You survived it,” Homura observed tonelessly.

“I'll live,” John panted, already tearing shreds of his grey-white desert camouflage. “You okay?”

“I will heal, in time,” Homura's head tilted. “I did not know that men... could be Puellae Magi.”

“Pueri Magi,” John answered. “To answer your question, well, I met an unusual Incubator.”

“You do not refer to them as Kyubey,” Homura said.

“Back home, Ebay made an impression,” John gave a huff of laughter. “Compared to her, Kyubeys all over the world are dicks. She told me the blunt, honest truth of what we are; soldiers. Least I could do is bluntly answer her.”

“Then in that, we are in agreement,” Homura squatted, tucking her heels under her seat as she moved. “It will take a while before we can escape; even demons must hide in the sandstorm. But... you are a soldier.”

“Disguise,” John shrugged as he unrolled the tools from his pack. “Doctor, too. Can you help me with this guy? We can have this conversation as we're sewing him up.”

“How did you achieve that kind of qualifications?” Homura asked, moving immediately to assist, even if just sterilising tools.

“I met another Pueri Magi, I know a few Puella Magi, we have a rotating shift,” John mumbled. “Been a while since then, back home in London. We called ourselves the Irregulars. So, where are you from?”

“Mitakihara City. Japan.”

“Sounds interesting.”

“Most of the time,” Homura tonelessly replied, still staring at John. “I did not know... that boys could be Magi.”

John's fingers flew to the Celtic cross around his neck, upon which the grey-white Soul Gem glittered. “Ebay... the Incubator I contracted with... did not care. I wanted that wish. I didn't mind fighting.”

“You are here,” Homura mumbled quietly. “Were you desperate?”

John smiled grimly, and the grey-white light of the Gem glittered against the bloodstains that covered the grey-white of his fatigues. “I made a wish that I wouldn't regret.”

 


	2. I: Cambiare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A meeting, a witness, a depressed Magi

Fog drifted in from the Thames. Well, fog had been less prevalent since the fifties, before John's own era, but there was still something romantic about the sea fog that came in up the Thames and covered up the miasma just fine. London was never truly shrouded in the dark these days, not with the harsh glare of electric lights that cut through the shadows as easily as knives; the shadows still made for an interesting play of monochrome, though. Demons loomed from the surface of London's river.

Hands of Brobdingnagian proportions reached over the closest bridges and railings, steel creaking as these humanoids beasts rose from the waters. One at its head, its pale-skinned body wrapped in ecru, gave a bellow that was cut off as a fist-sized hole dug through its neck.

The swing of a blade, and the demon's head toppled, its body landing on the ground. The miasma covered it; it would disappear come sunrise, and none the wiser to anyone save the Magi, especially the Puer Magi that landed on its body with a crunch of bone breaking. The army fatigues he wore were a grey-white that would never stain. The boots themselves were black, steel-toed and gleaming in London's streetlights. A beret perched on his head covered short blond hair and blue eyes, and the only nod to his heritage was in the blue-green tartan weave of the hat. A cloth pack hung from its usual place around his belt, and John knew that it would contain literally anything he cared to store and still leave him feeling light, including and up to, once in a very long time ago, an anti-ship missile.

The cane, dark green wood and far more suitable than the hospital-issue one John had employed, thudded on the ground, its blade with sharply honed edge prepared to cut in John’s hand. From around his neck, on its dark collar, a grey-white equal-armed Celtic cross hung closely around his neck, the jewel of his Soul Gem set in its heart shining with light like a falling star as he jumped again.

This time, a horde of demons loomed, and one reached out to the Thames, a cascade splashing over where John had been standing. The Webley revolver John held barked from the opposite side of the cascade, and the demon reeled back from the shot. At the same time, John had already beheaded two demons and aimed for the reeling one. The hammer clacked down with an audible click; the Puer Magi promptly discarded it and ducked, rolling to come up with a Bulldog revolver. The flare escaped the muzzle, and the demon's head blew up with the force of a .455 bullet and improbable forces, but its arm slammed into John.

John groaned as his body crashed against wrought-iron railings. Paint flaked off of the iron onto his hands, which he absently brushed off with a curse. John then took the sword-cane, wiped the blade on his leg, and proceeded to duck towards the nearest demon to cut it open, grabbing the cubes that spilled forth from the corpses as they fell amongst the cobblestones.

Peace fell over London Bridge, the Thames humming in its own ditty. Heels clicked behind him.

John barely bothered to look up. “There's extra if you need them.”

“I am fine,” the Puella Magi replied.

She looked young; old enough to attract a certain type of man, and young enough to inspire guilt in them for feeling such attraction. Her hair, dark and long, had been coiffured to within an inch of its life. She wore evening dress; the gown black and long with a slit, with two-inch heels that should have stopped her from jumping off of roofs. The sapphire that hung between her cleavage glimmered, a tear-drop of dark blue. “Not that you would know, given that it's been... a while... s- since they died. I came to see you.”

“I'm fine,” John motioned. “Hunting my keep and all of that. You don't have to worry about your stock, Irene.”

“I heard that you've been hunting every night,” Irene shrugged.

“Who told you?” John scoffed. “Not Ebay, for sure.”

“Why would it matter?” Irene sounded perplexed. “Ebay?”

John shook his head. “Must be a different Incubator. Irene... you don't find me just to play twenty questions and catch-up. You ask for coffee, we find a café, and we drink coffee and make conversation where you glean everything you want to know through meaningless bits and bobs without me ever giving you a direct answer. You're here in person.”

“...Sorry I couldn't make it for the funeral,” Irene mumbled.

“No, you're not.” John countered.

Irene sounded chagrined. “John...”

“You really aren't.”

“I see,” her voice turned soft. “You know how to contact me should assistance be required.”

“No one needs an injured soldier,” John muttered.

“But something could happen,” Irene argued. “Something could happen to you.”

John looked back, considering for a moment before he shook his head, giving the same answer that he would given Ella Thompson later. “Irene... nothing happens to me.”

 

* * *

 

A small, cat-like creature, about two feet long from nose to tail, scuttled through the pipes. It dropped from above, landing on all fours. Motes of dust covered its clean, white fur and the tips of what looked like four ears on its skull; two resembled an average cat’s ears. The other pair waved in tassels that fanned out to white, powder blue and dark midnight at the ends. Beady blue eyes with black irises glimmered in darkness.

A presence stirred within the room’s shadows, created by the light of a single table lamp on the trestle table. Acid burns and various stains littered the surface, amidst a plague of paper spreading from around the laptop towards the edges and the surrounding walls and floor.

“I see you’re back, Incubator.”

“There is nowhere I can go to,” it answered. Its mouth remained almost completely unmoving in its telepathic communication. Its bushy tail swished, revealing an egg-shaped blue oval. “You have quite handily tied my paws.”

“Lies don’t suit you, Incubator,” the presence replied.

Its tail rose. “I guarantee that here, at least, I do not lie.”

“You did go somewhere,” the presence pointed out. “Outside of London. You probably found the local Incubator, who then found a Puella Magi. Who is also presently aware that I am coming for her. Our ally, Irene Adler, was it?”

“You would not kill Adler now,” the blue Incubator pointed out. “Not with your impending arrangement of ‘destiny’, Puella Magi.”

“True,” the Puella Magi acknowledged as she turned around from the long table. Whatever was there apparently caused the Incubator to step back. “Incubator… no, Ebay. You’re right.”

A knife thudded, a hair-breadth from the catlike head. “I’ll just have to kill Adler once I’ve finished this stage.”

 

* * *

 

The next day, Mike Stamford came across John Watson.

“John Watson?” Mike called, albeit with a forced cheer as he took in John's façade. “I heard you were abroad somewhere getting shot at. What happened?”

“Got shot.” John gave a depreciating grin that invited awkward silence. Mike had grown older, he reflected. Changing the subject, John then leaned on his hospital cane. “Are you still at Bart's then?”

“Teaching now, yeah,” Mike leapt on that subject. “Bright young things like we used to be. God I hate them. What about you, just staying in town while you get yourself sorted?”

“I can't afford London on an army pension.” John sighed.

“Ah, you couldn't bear to be anywhere else.” Mike nodded in comprehension. “That's not the John Watson I know.”

“Yeah, I'm not that John Watson.” John chuckled. I was never that John Watson, was the implication that Mike missed.

“Couldn't Harry help?”

Harry Watson had died six months back with Clara Watson. “Yeah, like that's gonna happen.”

“I don't know. You could get a flat share or something.” Mike suggested.

“C'mon,” John had laughed off. “Who'd want me for a flatmate?”

Mike looked at him oddly.

“What?” John protested.

“Well, you're the second person to say that to me today.”

Sherlock Holmes resembled an overgrown child in John's view. The man might be over six feet tall, possess the air of a crazed Heathcliff, and was brilliant enough to match Mickey, but he was also a tosser, arrogant, and intelligent enough that his arrogance could be downplayed as fact. John had no idea what to think. Amazing. Brilliant. Fascinating. Incredible. Blockhead. Idiot. Socially awkward.

All the words would be apt to describe Sherlock Holmes. They would also all fall flat in describing Sherlock Holmes.

“How do you feel about the violin?”

“I'm sorry, what?”

“I play the violin when I’m thinking, and sometime I don't talk for days on end,” Sherlock loomed closer. “Would that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other.”

John turned to Mike. “You told him about me?”

“Not a word,” Mike answered.

“Then who says anything about flatmates?”

“I did,” Sherlock clapped his hands. “Told Mike this morning I must be a difficult man to find a flatmate for. Now here he is, just after lunch, with an old friend clearly just home from military service in Afghanistan. Wasn't a difficult leap.”

“How'd you know about Afghanistan?” No demon possession, no hypnosis…

“Got my eyes on a nice little place in central London, we ought to be able to afford it,” Sherlock continued. “We’ll meet there tomorrow evening, seven o’clock. Sorry, got to dash, I think I left my riding crop in the mortuary.”

“Is that it?” John sceptically muttered. Was there a human naturally this abrasive and interesting at the same time?

“Is that what?”

“We've only just met, and we're going to go and look at a flat?” John slowly clarified, as if explaining to a rather dim child.

Sherlock frowned. “Problem?”

“We don’t know a thing about each other. I don’t know where we’re meeting, I don’t even know your name.” John could feel a familiar expression of confused exasperation take over his face.

“I know you're an Army doctor, and you've been invalided home from Afghanistan,” Sherlock slowly began. “You've got a brother worried about you, but you won't go to him for help, because you don't approve of him, possibly because he's an alcoholic, more likely because he recently walked out on his wife, and I know your therapist thinks your limp is psychosomatic, quite correctly, I’m afraid. That’s enough to be going on with, don’t you think?”

Before stepping out of the laboratory, Sherlock suddenly turned back. “The name is Sherlock Holmes, and the address is 221B Baker Street.” A wink. “Afternoon.”

A sputter came over John, before he turned to Mike.

“Yeah, he's always like that,” Mike nodded.

John glanced back at his phone. If brother has green ladder, arrest brother. - SH. “I can tell.”

 

 


	3. II: Da Capo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock is wrong about three things. Not one.

Mike Stamford. That was usually how they met.

Red diamonds gleamed against black tights that coursed down acres of legs to ballet flats. Ruffled black lace hung over carmine silk on the skirt that hung from the red bodice, and the chatelaine belt pinched the waist narrow. Of course, this sartorial artistry was shrouded over with a long black cape that covered her shoulders down to her heeled boots.

The red Puella Magi drew her dark tartan cap close over her ears, watching the rotund figure of Stamford and the limping blond man behind him. In her hands, the ribbon of red flared, before it went still.

A spot of wet dropped onto the stone work of St Barts’ roof, before a passing cloud broke open. Before white stone had been touched by rain, the Magi was gone.

Mike Stamford. That was how John Hamish Watson met Sherlock Holmes.

At least, here and now.

* * *

“Oh, don't worry. We get all sorts 'round here. Mrs. Turner next door's got married ones.”

Barely six hours since the first meeting in a laboratory at St Barts’, and they were already shagging. Fantastic.

As Mrs Hudson left to potter about the kitchen and clean up the mess that Sherlock Holmes had made of 221B Baker Street, John sank into an armchair bearing a Union Jack cushion, since the cane would not allow him to do much. Yet. Magic was good and all, but he still needed to rest a bit.

“So... I looked you up on the Internet last night,” John commented.

Sherlock just stood by, hands in pockets now that the sitting room had been tidied to his satisfaction. Factually speaking, there was very little change pre- and post-hurricane. “Anything interesting?”

“... you said that you could tell a software designer by his tie... and an airline pilot by his left thumb?”

“Yes. And I could read your military career in your face and your leg and your brother's drinking habits and your mobile phone.” Sherlock's voice is cool and utterly certain.

John continued to hold his gaze. “How?”

Sherlock broke eye contact first and turned to look out the window. Mrs. Hudson re-entered with a newspaper, but Sherlock's attention was caught by something outside the window, tension growing in his shoulders… John blinked. Footsteps pounded up the stairs.

A man in a long coat burst in and stopped just inside the door.

“Where?”

John felt as though there were no one in the room except Sherlock and the grey-haired man with tired eyes. There was a force of will there, a determination that John had felt in veteran Puella Magi, especially one who had cleaned up the Afghan desert in more or less an hour.

“Brixton, Lauriston Gardens,” the grey-haired man drawled, panting.

“What's new about this one? You wouldn't have come to me otherwise.”

“You know how they never leave notes? Well, this one did.” The man paused. “Will you come?”

“Not in a police car. I'll be right behind,” said Sherlock, as though granting a great concession.

The man bowed in an ironic way, nodded to Mrs, Hudson and left. Sherlock turned away, then a grin spread wide over his thin face and he jumped – actually jumped! – in excitement. “Brilliant! Yes! Four serial suicides and now a note, oh! It's Christmas.” In a whirl of energy Sherlock grabbed at his long coat and scarf, tossing out instructions to the tolerant Mrs. Hudson, suggestions for John and then he was gone.

The sudden silence hung thick, and the landlady looked at John with understanding and a trace of pity. “Always dashing about. My husband was like that, too. But you're more the sitting down type, I can tell. I'll make a cup of tea, just this once, right there?”

John jabbed at the floor with his cane, mouth grim. “I... erm, I wouldn't like to-”

“Oh, it'll be fine.” Mrs Hudson nodded in understanding and left John alone.

Sherlock had scampered off, to consult, or whatever. Off doing interesting things, leaving John in this rubbish tip of a flat with his stupid leg playing up. “Nothing happens to-”

John closed his mouth. No, that was wrong. Interesting things happened, wraiths and abominations happened that made everything lonely and scary and John could never talk about them.

That's not true, you know.

Shut up, John thought back very loudly, and only the answering huff greeted him before the resident Incubator left him to his own devices.

Nothing ever happened to John except what he made happen these days. Stupid to feel left out.

“You're a doctor,” John looked up to see Sherlock at the door. “In fact, you're an Army doctor,” Sherlock continued in that assessing manner.

“Yes,” John hefted himself up to a standing position under the curious stare. He can't see, John reminded himself. No one ever thinks of Puer Magi, despite that without hiding behind magic, John would look no older than sixteen.

“Any good?”

“Very good,” John replied after a pause. The best, he forbore to mention.

“Seen a lot of injuries, then,” Sherlock paced forward, almost predatory in those motions. “Violent deaths.”

“Well... yeah.” More than you'll ever know.

“Bit of trouble too, I'll bet,” stated Sherlock.

“Of course, yes. Enough for a lifetime... far too much.” You know, but you've no real idea, thought John. The urge to throttle Sherlock warred with John’s own unhealthy curiosity.

A blood knight, Homura had called him. John felt that maybe part of that had been warranted.

Sherlock loomed over him and John carefully kept his face bland and stood his ground, refusing to be intimidated. “Want to see some more?"

“Oh, god, yes.”

Before he quite knew what he was doing, he was in the front hall, waiting while Sherlock gleefully kissed Mrs. Hudson at the fresh prospect of a puzzle.

“Who cares about decent? The game, Mrs Hudson, is on!”

Of course, Sherlock Holmes also had near-magical taxi-summoning skills. I know Magi who would kill for that, John's lips curved up as he ducked into the taxi. Sherlock gave the address to the driver, who nodded his capped head and pulled away from the kerb. Sherlock pulled out his phone and began texting, searching, the glow of the tiny screen brightening as dusk fell over the city.

John waited. Despite what many Magi thought, being able to keep completely still was impossible for some. John had seen masters of keeping still, and most of them could take him in a meditation bout any day with their focus. So yes, John had learned from the best in patience. Finally he glanced at Sherlock, and away again.

Sherlock caught the movement, flicked a glance at him and then put his mobile away. “You've got questions.”

“Yeah,” John agreed. “Where are we going?”

Sherlock gave him a look that, despite any lack of facial expression, managed to convey his condescension quite well. “Crime scene. Next.”

John's jaw muscles flexed, presumably with the effort of not slugging the taller man at the first chance. “Who are you? What do you do?”

“What do you think?”

“I'd say... private detective...”

“But?”

“The police don't go to private detectives.”

Sherlock grinned. “I'm a consulting detective. Only one in the world. I invented the job.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means, that when the police are out of their depth – which is always – they consult me.”

John looked at Sherlock with disbelief. Arrogant didn't really adequately describe the man. “The police don't consult amateurs.” Despite the disbelief, John said it with a smile.

Sherlock turned to look at him, mouth tight. Then his lips twitched up. Challenge accepted, his body language read. “When I met you for the first time yesterday I said Afghanistan or Iraq – you looked surprised.”

“Yes, how did you know?”

“I didn't know, I saw,” Sherlock then casually began listing off all his features. Haircut, tan, limp. Wounded in action. Suntan. Conclusion: Afghanistan or Iraq.”

If you didn't see this illusion... what would you have seen? John wondered. A sixteen year old boy, still skinny and underfed? “You said I had a therapist.”

Sherlock's reply was immediate and scornful. “With a psychosomatic limp, of course you've got a therapist. Then there's your brother. Your phone – it's expensive, email enabled, MP3 player. You're looking for a flat-share; you wouldn't buy this, it's a gift. Scratches, not one, many over time; it's been in the same pocket as keys and coins. You wouldn't treat his one luxury item like this, so it's had a previous owner. Next bit's easy, you know it already.”

“The... engraving?”

Sherlock restrained a triumphant smile. “Harry Watson. Clearly a family member who's given you his old phone. Not your father – this is a young man's gadget. Could be a cousin, but you're a war hero who can't find a place to live. Unlikely you've got an extended family, not one you're close to. Brother it is. Now Clara, who's Clara? Three kisses says it's a romantic attachment. The expense of the phone says wife, not girlfriend. A recent gift; this model's only six months old. Marriage in trouble, then – six months and he's just given it away. If she'd left him, he would've kept it, sentiment. No it was the opposite; he left her. He gave it to you, that says he wants to stay in touch. You're looking for cheap accommodation, but you're not going to your brother for help. That says you've got problems with him, either you liked his wife... or you don't like his drinking.”

At this John turned his face forward to hide his expression. “How. Can. You. Possibly know. About the drinking.” How else could Harry keep up with knowing that her wife could be horribly killed at a moment's notice? She'd been dealing with it in her AA meetings... the last one prompted the attack that ended their lives.

“Shot in the dark, good one though,” Sherlock held up the phone, pointing to various marks and scuffs “You never see those marks on a sober man's phone, never see a drunk's without them. There – you see, you were right.”

“I was right-! Right about what?” John broke out of his daydream.

“The police don't consult amateurs.” Sherlock spoke with finality.

John was quiet a moment, digesting what he'd just heard. “That... was amazing.”

Sherlock looked at him with surprise. “You think so?”

“Yes, of course it was. It was extraordinary, quite extraordinary.”

“That's not what people normally say.”

Did no one ever show him how to act? Was no one ever nice to the man? “What do people normally say?”

“Piss off!” Sherlock smiled, a real smile in rueful acknowledgement of his shortcomings. John had to turn away to hide his involuntary grin. “Ah, here we are.”

The cab had slowed. Ahead was a street filled with police lights flashing off of old brickwork. Sherlock thrust some money at the cabbie, and jumped out. John hoisted himself from the taxi, the door slammed in his wake.

Together they began to walk to the barrier of tape, Sherlock checking his pace slightly to keep John at his side, John stretching his stride a bit to keep up. “Did I get anything wrong?” Sherlock gave that boyish grin that wouldn't have looked out of place with Peter Pan... or a Puer Magi.

No. The life of a Puer Magi would have leeched everything out of him. “Harry and me didn't get on.”John admitted. “Never have. Harry was a drinker.”

Sherlock stopped walking. “Didn't. Was.”

“Harry and Clara died six months ago. Clara drove Harry to her AA meeting, they... didn't make it there.” Technically true.

“Car accident,” Sherlock muttered. “The legal fees... that explains why you're looking for accommodation, the funerals and costs would have drained your pension. That explains why you're using your late brother's... phone.”

“And,” John laid the final card. “Harry is short for Harriet.”

“Harry's your sister.”

“What exactly am I doing here?”

“Sister!” Sherlock muttered the word as an invective. “Not one, but two!”

“No, seriously, what am I doing here?” John suppressed a smile at Sherlock's irritated hiss. Always, yes. Never assume. You don't know me that well, Sherlock, no matter how many layers you peel.

The brief, tenuous accord John shared with Sherlock lasted only a few minutes later. All over again John was reminded of Sherlock's behaviour in the lab yesterday with Molly and himself.

“Hello, Freak.” They obviously had some kind of history. Sherlock introduced Sally Donovan as an old friend, but John couldn't quite make out whether he was being sarcastic or not. She barely cast John a glance, instead concentrating her venomous look upon Sherlock.

John watched with a furrowed brow. “Would it be better if I just waited?”

What I am doing here? What possessed me? Oh, right. Damned curiosity. And a craving for some excitement beyond the next swarm of monsters.

Sherlock gave a firm negation, lifting the barrier for John to pass under, and swept past the stunned crime scene technician just coming out into the decrepit Edwardian house.

John was... appalled. He glanced at Sally's frozen expression and followed Sherlock within, agitated. Within the house, Sherlock directed John to put on a crime scene coverall.

“Who's this?” it was the grey-haired man, the one John had seen in the newspaper he hadn't managed to read. DI Lestrade.

“He's with me.”

DI Lestrade gave John a dubious look, and Sherlock growled at him.

“I said, he's with me.”

Not that Lestrade remembered him from earlier – apparently whenever Sherlock was about, he held all the attention exclusively. He followed the detective inspector and the rude man up the stairs. It would be the top floor, of course. The worse to pull of a pantomime of an injured leg.

He spoke up. “Sergeant Donovan, out there.”

“Yes, what about her?” Sherlock answered absently.

“You said she's an old friend of yours?"

“Yes.”

Sherlock didn't notice the odd quality in John's voice, though Lestrade looked back at the smaller man as he struggled up the stairs.

“Oh,” John's voice was pleasant. “I would never have guessed.”

At that Sherlock looked sharply back at him. “We've known each other for years,” he offered.

John stood with Lestrade at the door, watching as Sherlock flitted about the unfortunate woman's body. The man was being unbelievably rude, again. Telling the Inspector to shut up, rubbing his nose in Lestrade's inability to unwind the case, slamming the door on Anderson. Who was he trying to impress?

“Dr Watson. What do you think?”

Me? John looked at him. Sherlock's tone was respectful.

Lestrade made a helpless gesture and left them to it.

John joined Sherlock over the body. What am I doing here, in a police investigation? Sherlock doesn't need a doctor or a fucking Magi. The man's mad.

“I'm supposed to be helping you pay the rent.”

“Well, this is more fun.” Sherlock looked eagerly at John.

“Fun? There's a woman lying dead.”

“Perfectly sound analysis, but I was hoping you'd go deeper.” Sherlock pointed out.

John sighed, and performed a quick examination. “Asphyxiation... probably. Passed out, choked on her own vomit. No alcohol smell. Could've been a seizure. Possibly drugs. She was in wet weather though.”

“You know what it was, you've read the papers-” Sherlock broke off. “Wet weather?”

“She's one of the suicides, the fourth?” John turned to Lestrade.

Lestrade nodded. “You've got two minutes, then you've got to go.”

“Victim is in her late thirties, professional person, going by her clothes,” Sherlock huffed. “I'm guessing something in the media, going by the frankly alarming shade of pink. Travelled to Cardiff today, intending to stay in London for one night, judging from the size of her suitcase-”

“Suitcase?” Interjection from Lestrade.

“-yes, suitcase,” Sherlock affirmed.

John struggled to his feet without help. Sherlock was pacing about, talking in short bursts. When Lestrade lifted a disbelieving brow, he knelt and began elucidate, pointing at the jewellery and hands.

That odd feeling was creeping over John again as the facts kept piling up. Good god. How did the man do it? All that data, just from observation. Sherlock looked at him, a question in his eyes. He was on a roll, and John was here, watching him, and it was all so interesting.

“It's fantastic!” John spoke admiringly again.

“You know that you do that out loud?”

John grimaced in apology. “Sorry, I'll shut up.”

Sherlock looked away.

“Cardiff?” Lestrade cut in.

“It's obvious, isn't it?”

“It's not obvious to me,” John quietly murmured.

“Dear God, what is it like in your funny little brains, it must be so boring,” Sherlock drawled, before launching into his explanation, his movements and manner as arresting as black diamonds upon red, or red diamonds upon black.

Lestrade interrupted with a question and he whirled back to the problem, and that was where John got lost. Suitcase?

The importance of the suitcase was tossed to the four winds in Sherlock’s quick-paced diatribe, delivered as the man himself ran out of the crime scene. John and Lestrade both followed as Sherlock ran out the door and half-way down the stairs, bellowing up at them. Awash in grey light, John watched revelation cross the tall man's face as the pieces clicked into place and the harlequin flounced off to the doors.

“Pink!”


	4. III: Semplicemente

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John is normal, to Sherlock. Sherlock had never seen John shoot the cabbie. Because the one who punctured the cab's tyres as it was about to leave killed Lucy Ferrier.
> 
> So, Sherlock never saw the Puer Magi murder a Puella Magi before she could aim at Sherlock

 

Under cover of the relative dimness of night, John would have taken to the roofs, or the relative anonymity of his younger form, or even relished jumping head-first into the miasmas that tended to gather along the Thames. Tonight, though, something gave him pause.

John stared up at the roofs. Somehow, somewhere, he thought he heard footsteps. The whoosh of a transforming Magi, or something… more than the feeling of being watched.

He stayed on the street level. The police presence around Brixton forced the doctor to walk for the main road, where a nondescript black town car awaited him.

The door opened, and the brunette in the black pencil-skirt nodded at him. “Get in, please.”

Hefting his cane – and here he saw that she was shifting in preparation, ready to duck or dash – in one hand, John got in.

“Hi, Vanessa.” he started as the car started moving. Both of them temporarily ignored the car’s third and fourth occupants.

“Today it's Anthea,” she confirmed.

“The Greek chorus call me in?” John ignored the correction.

“Um… no.”

“How have you been?”

“We've made excellent headway into the government.”

John sighed. “Put down the Blackberry, I haven't seen you since you weaved this mask for me.”

She glanced up. The device landed on buttery soft leather upholstery.

“You're back,” she said after what felt like a geological epoch. “We all thought… Mickey said so.”

The third occupant coughed. “I’m right here, you know.”

John looked at him. Put on a stone, the doctor part of him estimated. Old money, as John had always thought of someone with a name so embarrassing that he had preferred to be called Mickey. A sable umbrella was held in one hand, the curved-handle kind with a wickedly sharp point.

“John,” the man greeted. “How nice to see you.”

Beside Mickey, a tuft of white tail swished from side to side. The large-eared head swivelled about its neck, and the Incubator's ever-smiling face oriented itself from Puella Magi to Puer Magi. “ _Good evening, John Hamish Watson._ ”

“Ebay,” John greeted without turning to face it. “You're still hanging around? I thought economic depressions was where you hung out.”

“ _The Magi population in Greece would be threatened should more contracts be forged,_ ” Ebay confirmed telepathically. “ _This entire subcontinent has been cleared for small-scale testing. Keeping track of the first two Puer Magi in over a millennium is part of that._ ”

“Yeah, we're rarities,” John muttered. “If you're not persuading little Greek girls to sign their souls over into your eternal war.”

“Your Cubes?”

John grimaced, before a bag materialised in his outstretched hand. He reached in and pulled out a series of small cubes.

Ebay reached out, twisting its body in mid-air until it caught all the cubes on some part of itself, be it head, tail or paw. The blue-outline tattoo on its back gleamed, before it slotted open and the tiny Incubator flung the cubes into whatever hollow it was and shifted back to a cat-sitting position.

Momentarily, its head inclined. “ _Our business is concluded._ ”

“You know, I've got a phone,” John shook his head. “I mean, very clever and all that, Mickey, but, erm... you could just phone me. On my phone.”

“You haven't been answering our calls,” the man with the umbrella answered. “How long has it been since we met?”

“Over a decade, probably.”

“And how did you get injured?”

John shrugged. “I got shot.”

The other man fairly swelled, and for a moment John could glimpse the dark violet gem hidden in the Windsor knot, the Soul Gem that was proof of the second and only other Puer Magi John knew of. “John. You know that as what we are, conventional weapons are laughably ineffective. The Incubator confirmed as much.”

“Sniper rifle. High calibre.”

“You don't seem very afraid,” he observed.

“You don't seem very frightening,” John countered.

Both men exchanged stared for a moment before the besuited man's face split into an infectious grin and the two men shook hands.

“Mickey, have you been hitting the cakes again?” John mocked solemnly. “You've gained weight since I last saw you.”

“Losing it,” the man now named as Mickey specified. “You, on the other hand, have lost a lot of weight.”

“Gaining it,” John shrugged. “Demons hitting London much lately? I've been getting lots of hunts just by walking around Tower Hill.”

“Imbolc season,” the man with the umbrella leaned closer. “What can permanently injure a Puer Magi?”

“Tell me if you know,” John shrugged. “I'm still recovering.”

“We have a support network for Magi like us, and it started because of you,” Mickey gravely commented. “Our network would provide much better than a tiny bedsit, a therapist you regularly lie to, and a pitifully small pension.”

John ignored everything Mickey had implied. “It's... not that. It's not about the money. Never about the money. I’m moving house, found a flat-share.”

“Ah, yes, with Sherlock Holmes,” Mickey agreed. “What is it, John? We've fought back-to-back for ten years.”

“You mean, you've stood behind and called our asses into strategic gear in the mazes while we fought to provide your Cubes.”

“Being useless in battle is the price of omniscience,” Mickey answered with a shrug. “But if you are so inclined to work where you should be recuperating from what took down a Puer Magi, then I can imagine a suitable job for you.”

John stared at him. “Pretend, for a second, that I am interested, and that you're not making it up on the spot just as a favour.”

This earned a snort. “I always require trusted personnel, both in my capacity as a minor official of the British Government-” this earned a snort from Anthea, “-and as a Puer Magi fighting in defence of humanity. I have news that there is another Puella Magi out to take over London, and that Irene Adler has taken her side.”

“A territory battle?” John commented. “The Incubators don’t care as usual, right?”

Mickey gave a shrug that still conveyed his opinion of worry. “London has traditionally functioned as their testing zone since the House of Normandy. It stands to reason that they would be looking on to test the efficacy of Puella Magi migration in both short- and long-term.”

“Anyway,” John changed the subject. “I’m fine. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“About you, no,” Mickey demurred. “About your potential flat-mate, and my brother, yes.”

John’s brow furrowed. “T- There are two of you.”

“ _Sherlock Holmes was meant to be the case study after Mycroft Holmes,_ ” Ebay related. Its voice was cheerful; there was barely any deviation from a joyful, happy tone that seemed to be the default of all Incubators. “ _A pity._ ”

“Mycroft Holmes and Sherlock Holmes; our parents were genuinely sadistic,” Mycroft agreed, though with a touched of extreme reluctance. “He is… He is brilliant, multi-talented, and capable at anything he turns his mind to. But he is incapable of hiding his brilliance, and social norms do not come to him so normally. You can imagine the Christmas dinners.”

“Yes,” John blurted. “Wait… no. No.”

Mickey sighed. “Yes, there's two of me. Try to keep up, O fearless soldier. Otherwise I may have to reiterate that bravery is by far the kindest word for stupidity.”

“Of course. The world couldn't just give us one arrogant sod. They had to give us two,” John paused in his muttering. “Is he... one of us?”

“No,” the answer came too quickly. “He is not, and never shall, know of our world.”

“Not due to my better efforts,” Ebay chipped in.

If Mickey’s expression ever changed, John would have sworn that the elder Holmes was glaring at the Incubator.

“If he's half as brilliant as you, Mickey, he must have figured it out.” John pointed out.

“That was the tenet of my wish,” Mickey quietly answered.

A long silence, before John coughed into his free hand. “Oh. So... oh.”

Mickey’s silence spoke volumes.

John leaned back on the upholstery, grimacing. “If this is a social call, Mickey, I will pull your brain out through your nostrils.”

“A surprising amount of vitriol that the act itself would require, John,” came the answer, now that the resulting tension had dissipated. “Your impression of the little brother?”

“He's a bit mad,” John admitted. “But if he's haring after serial killers... well, he managed to deduce Harry, except that he missed that Harry was female, she died married and yes, Harry was drunk. Do you guys do that for fun, Mickey? Read a person's entire life history from their physical form or something?”

“It's a family knack,” Mickey self-deprecatingly answered. “My... knack, as it is, is much more than Sherlock's, but what makes Sherlock an effective person in his chosen field is his tenacity and resourcefulness.”

“Basically he's a mad bugger who's willing to do anything to prove himself right,” John guessed.

Mickey grimaced. “I worry about him. Constantly. Since yesterday you've moved in with him, and now you're solving crimes together. It beggars belief.”

“Not you too,” John groaned. “Mrs Hudson already asked if we'll be needing two bedrooms.”

“You can't deny that Sherlock seems to be positively accommodating of you. It's... unusual.”

“That's accommodating?” John shook his head.

“You've met him. How many friends do you think he has?”

The doctor and Puer Magi winced as one within John Watson.

“Whereas, if Sherlock were to have a... permanent bond,” Mickey soldiered on. “A bodyguard whose endurance has already proven stable in the battlefields of Afghanistan, a protective man who would care for him-”

“Mickey... never. Never. Play matchmaker.” John shook his head.

“Ah. I see.”

“Thank God you're above all that.”

“In one day you’re moving in with him and solving crimes together. Might we expect a happy announcement by the end of the week?”

“No! No, no!” John moaned. “It... doesn't matter.”

His phone beeped. Baker Street. _Come at once if inconvenient. - SH._

“I hope I'm not distracting you,” Mickey placated.

“Not. At. All.” John sighed. “How do I explain that I was in your cushy car, and Sherlock might actually be able to tell if I was in it?”

“I do this with all of Sherlock's... long-term acquaintances not vetted.” Mickey waved. “Right now he thinks I'm offering you a meaningful sum of money on a regular basis to... ease your way. In exchange for information, nothing indiscreet, nothing uncomfortable. With the understood clause that my concern went unnoticed.”

Beep. _If inconvenient, come anyway. - SH._

“You have this,” John tapped the middle of his forehead. “What's my answer?”

“No. Then I would have answered: 'But I haven't mentioned a figure'. You'd tell me not to bother. I would make a pithy comment on your loyalty, you'd reply you're just... not interested, when in fact, you are very loyal, very quickly. Then I would pull out your therapist's notes and comment on your trust issues – which Magus does not have them after meeting the Incubators? – and make another insinuation with regards to the homoerotic status between my brother and yourself-”

“I need to scrub my _ears_ -”

“-and then I'd summarise that from your left hand, it's not going to happen,” Mickey finished.

“My hand?”

“You have an intermittent tremor in your left hand, your therapist thinks it to be PTSD but it's perfectly steady when you're under pressure. She thinks you're haunted by the war, when in fact you miss it. I would leave, Anthea would take you back, and then you'd stop at your awful bedsit to get that very illegal Sig Sauer and bring it to Baker Street, where Sherlock would make a comment on how you should have accepted my offer and split the fee when in fact he's touched by your loyalty. I believe a candlelit dinner between the two of you follows.”

His phone beeped again. _Could be dangerous. - SH._

“Really?” John muttered. “A candlelit dinner?”

“Yes,” Mickey's smile remained, though it had grown progressively less feral and more of delighted near-sadism. “Yes. By the by, don't let Sherlock take any cabs tonight.”

“Why?”

Mickey smirked. “You'll know.”

The car slowed to a stop at the nearest corner, and Mycroft opened the door to walk out, swinging his umbrella from one hand.

“Bye, Mickey,” John mockingly waved. “Try not to start any Magi wars while I'm away, you know how Puellae Magi get up to.”

Behind the magically changing figure of Mycroft Holmes, the silhouette of Ebay the Incubator paced behind, trotting sedately in time with Mycroft’s now-adult pace behind the walking Puer  Magus, the car drove off, with John and Anthea inside.

“What are you up to, Ebay?” John snidely muttered.

* * *

“Go back to where you called me across London to send a text,” John demanded about ten minutes after the car dropped him off at 221B Baker Street. “I got kidnapped and then driven back here, and the first thing you ask for is my bloody phone...”

“Have you done it?”

“Ye- hang on!” John typed as quickly as he could. “'What happened at Lauriston Gardens? I must have blacked out'- you blacked out?”

“What? No- No!” Sherlock actually pulled himself off the couch to glare at John, pulling a hot pink case towards the fireplace.

“'22 Northumberland Street, please come.'” John finished typing and hit send, before he stared towards Sherlock, and the case, with no small amount of barely concealed horror.

Sherlock paused, and then sighed. “Oh, perhaps I should mention – I didn't kill her.”

“I never said you did.”

“Why not?” Sherlock pressed. “Given the text I just had you send and the fact that I have her case, it's a perfectly logical assumption.”

Assumptions were dangerous, hence all judgements were to be held until further notice lest a Magus accidentally killed a human. John didn't feel like explaining this, though. “Do people usually assume you're the murderer?”

“Now and then... yes.”

Sherlock then proceeded to explicate, with broad sweeping gestures, everything about the case – how the murderer wound up with the unwanted memento of his crime, how he got rid of it, Sherlock's cleverness in finding it – all down to the colour. “It had to be pink, obviously.”

“Why didn't I think of that,” John murmured half to himself, and was stung when Sherlock immediately replied: “Because you're an idiot. No, no! Don't look like that. Practically everyone is. Look. Do you see what's missing?”

John glared. Well, the idiot says: by virtue of it not being there, you bloody rude arse... “How could I?”

For asking, John was walked through a series of deductions concerning the whereabouts of the phone, which had to be pink, and its most likely fate...

John was equal parts astonished... and alarmed. “Did I just text a murderer?”

The phone rang and John picked it up. **[Number withheld]**

“A few hours after his last victim, and the murderer receives a text that could only be from her,” Sherlock mused. “If somebody just found that phone, they'd ignore a text like that, but the murderer... would panic.”

“Why are you talking to me?” John asked as Sherlock leapt up and began pulling on his coat. “What about the police?”

“Mrs. Hudson took my skull.” It sounded petulant. “Four people are dead, there isn't time.”

“So I'm basically filling in for your skull.”

“Relax, you're doing fine,” Sherlock deflected. “...Well?”

“Well what?” John bristled.

“Well... you could just sit there and... watch telly,” Sherlock suggested, with a hint of disbelief.

“You want me to come with you?” John cottoned on.

“I like company when I go out, and I think better when I talk aloud,” Sherlock dismissed with a shrug. “The skull attracts attention, so... problem?”

“Yeah, Sergeant Donovan.”

“What about her?”

“She said you get off on this.”

Sherlock paused a long moment. “And I said dangerous, and here you are.”

He turned with a sweep of his coat as John took that in. “Dammit!”

* * *

“Come to spy on me now?” John later remarked as he spotted the cat-like form perched on a streetlamp, specifically watching him. He was quiet so as to not draw attention from the ongoing drugs bust that had greeted them when Sherlock and John had come back from a candlelit dinner, a run through London and catching up to a case of mistaken identity in a black hackney. Magic filled the area around 221B; clearly, a Puella Magi was hunting around. John resolved to have a firm word with that Magi soon.

A black cab rolled up towards 221 Baker Street, and here the driver got out. The man readjusted his cloth cap, an ordinary move, except that John’s gut told him that the man was clearly possessed, that the sheer wrongness of the demon housed in a human body could be felt even from the second-floor window.

 _Wraith_ , Incubator and Puer Magi concluded immediately.

“Wait, the police…” John swallowed as the cabbie headed up towards 221B. John walked out, ignoring Sherlock’s shouts towards Scotland Yard in general before he passed the attic window.

“ _They cannot stop the wraith,_ ” Ebay murmured. “ _A demon that embodies murderous intent… how unique. I wonder what its effects would be._ ”

John’s hand was steady as he climbed onto the banisters. His limp had faded as he rested his weight on one arm. The Soul Gem around his neck sparked, before the Mark I Webley revolver materialised in his hand, but the cabbie had already gone into the house.

“ _You play a risk, John Hamish Watson,_ ” Ebay persuaded. “Better for Sherlock Holmes to draw it away, before you place yourself at risk.”

“Ebay,” John spoke through gritted teeth. “Now I know you’re up to something.”

“Does it matter?” the Incubator lightly asked.

At the same time, the cabbie exited the building and got into his cab. Seconds later, a dark head poked out, wrapped in a flaring dark coat.

“You idiot,” John muttered, raising the gun.

The shot rang out at the same time that grey-white light consumed his form, and as the cab started to move. A tyre popped, and with it Scotland Yard poured out, all of them headed towards the disabled cab.

While Sherlock was bemoaning the loss of knowledge amidst Lestrade’s yells for a search party, John had taken to the roof, where he caught the Puella Magi above. Her dark hair was cropped short. Instead of a school uniform, she wore a layered skirt of black lace, rusty red and golden silk. Her bodice was a stylish mess of red leather belts with golden buckles, on top of a blouse fashioned out of red and with black lace edging and netting. Dark gloves reached up to her elbows, and lace-up boots with square heels hugged her calves. A subtle reddish glow came from her main belt buckle, where a carmine crystal gleamed in its housing.

“Daddy…?” the Puella Magi’s stared from John to Ebay, and then back again. “Ebay? You didn’t… who are you?”

“A Magi, like you,” John answered, feeling sick with realisation.

“ _You have done well, Lucy Ferrier,_ ” Ebay murmured, though its lips did not move. “ _But, the wraith was intercepted. In moments your link to the last demon swarm will be taken into custody, and relieved. Your father is going to be arrested._ ”

“Stop,” John softly persuaded. “Lucy… you can’t trust Ebay. It’s lying to you. It does that. Everything is made so that we never have to lie.”

“ _The only way you can save your father here is to kill Sherlock Holmes,_ ” the Incubator continued cheerfully. “ _Without Holmes’s evidence, there is no proof. The one you made your wish for, the one you healed with your miracle, will remain free._ ”

“Your father’s a serial killer,” John rapidly spoke even as the Puella Magus began to edge away from him. “He’s killed four people already, there was a lady in pink yesterday. You can’t help him.”

“ _You can,_ ” Ebay murmured. “ _Holmes is only one man, and human at that. No one would ever think it was magic._ ”

A coin appeared in Lucy’s hand. it spiralled about slowly, as if suspended in mid-air. John could see the resolution right before Lucy Ferrier even pointed the coin towards the ongoing crime scene.

The report was loud, as expected from a .455 bullet. The Gem never stood a chance.

Lucy’s form tottered, almost in disbelief before death overtook her eyes. The girl fell down from the roof of 221B Baker Street, her brains dashed on the pavement and with a sickening thud. As the finest of the London Metropolitan Police gathered around the dead body of Lucy Ferrier, John’s sixteen-year-old form had long disappeared into Baker Street’s buildings, where, a flash of grey later, John doubled over in the toilet and was violently sick.


	5. IV: Con Brio

_“Are you alright?” the boy Magi asked._

_“Why?”_

_“Well, you have just killed a man,” Mycroft pointed out._

_John packed the rifle away into his bottomless pack. “He wasn't a very nice man, was he?”_

_“... there is that,” the other Puer Magi cautiously acknowledged. “But to take that shot... was rather mad.”_

_John was already on the move with Mycroft in tow. “How old are you?”_

_“Physically twelve, chronologically twenty-two,” Mycroft supplied._

_“John Watson,” John offered. “The girl, Belinda, she’s with Clara, that’s the one dressed like a redcoat soldier. Your name's...?”_

_“Mickey,” Mycroft beamed in answer. “Anyone who killed an assassin and is going to patch Belinda and I up calls me Mickey.”_

_“Really?”_

_“I know,” the newly introduced Mickey grimaced as he knelt with John on either side of Belinda, “Your parents had an unfortunate lapse of judgement, but mine were genuinely sadistic.”_

* * *

Unlike the dreams of Afghanistan, John usually awoke shivering from dreams involving his sideline. His shoulder barely throbbed unless he wanted it to; part of John wished for pain to remind him of an attachment, but then that same pain would cripple him even more than the psychosomatic limp that caused the snakewood cane to appear when he transformed.

Part of him loved it, that his body was a slave to his whims now rather than the opposite, that there was no way he could be laid up too long as long as magic sparked within the Soul Gem. Part of him hated it, that his self was reduced to a light within the Gem, a ghost in the machine.

Most of him was ambivalent about it. Fine, so he was technically a zombie, and had been for twenty years. He could deal. What was harder was the truth of Lucy Ferrier.

“ _The night of Imbolc has passed._ ” Tail swishing from his windowsill, Ebay sniffed disdainfully from its perch. “ _You shall have to wait till the night of Walpurgis to have such good hunting again._ ”

John stared at it. “You don’t even care, do you?”  
“ _What ever for?_ ”

“For Lucy Ferrier,” John glared, now awake enough to remember. “Lucy recognised you; you made that contract with her. You pushed her to set up at Baker Street, hence the demon.”

The Incubator gave a sniff that was the closest indication to contemptuous. “ _And why would I do any of that?_ ”

“Sherlock,” John retorted. “Mickey might have scuppered your plans, but that magical potential is there. All Lucy was meant to do was eliminate the demon in front of him, and then you’d have circumvented him and probably netted another Magus, if that was what you were gunning for. I know you don’t understand human feelings, or even the ramifications of what you tried, but let me tell you, right now. I am not going to let you contract Sherlock Holmes.”

Ebay’s head tilted, but it said nothing else on the subject of Sherlock. “ _Will you be finding the Puella Magi Soo-Lin Yao?_ ”

John paused. He stared at the cat-creature that was clearly not of Earth origin. “You...”

“ _Lucy Ferrier was clearly desperate,_ ” Ebay slowly replied. “ _Considering that her mother's third boyfriend was the one responsible for the disappearance of John Ferrier, the poor girl was in a state of paranoia. I gave her all the warnings I gave you, which is fair enough._ ”

John sighed. “I am not going to say anything, because you won't understand anyway. Good day, Ebay.”

“... _humans_ ,”the Incubator commented as John, unselfconscious, started to change. _“Such a self-absorbed species._ ”

“John!” Sherlock’s bellow was what John was greeted with at the day’s break. “Come along, there’s been a new development in the Hope case!”

“The Hope case?” John echoed as Sherlock whirled onto him, clad in a dressing gown thrown over pyjamas.

“The cabbie serial killer!” Sherlock clapped his hands. “His daughter fell from the roof of Baker Street last night, distraught father confessed to all crimes. We’re to see him immediately. Lestrade wants this to be wrapped up cleanly.”

John flinched, as if by instinct.

For some inexplicable reason, Sherlock had dragged him along to New Scotland Yard to interview the newly apprehended serial killer cabbie, Jeff Hope. Under the harsh glare of the fluorescent light overhead, Jeff Hope looked deflated. Mostly, it looked like any anger he held was gone. His eyes were puffy and pinkish, tear tracks evident around his eyes.

“He's been crying all night,” Lestrade murmured. “He's just been saying a single word, over and over.”

“What word?” Sherlock asked.

“Lucy.”

“Any significance?”

“Lucy Ferrier, the girl who fell from your roof last night, and his estranged daughter.” Lestrade supplied. “We just called it in down in Sussex. Found the rotting body of his son, John Ferrier, but daughter was reported missing. Ex-wife's overseas-”

“-with the third boyfriend this year, no doubt,” Sherlock scathingly bit back. “Open the room, Lestrade. I can interrogate him.”

Lestrade made a very put-upon sigh, which John was becoming very familiar with already in a day of having met the man. “Why did you have to bring the doctor?”

“Obvious,” Sherlock crisply replied as Lestrade opened the door and John went in.

“Mr Holmes,” Hope acknowledged after a pause stretching through a seeming eternity. “Sorry, I’ve no idea how I missed you. Maybe you should put up a photograph on the website.”

“Maybe not,” Sherlock demurred. “Gets in the way of undercover work.”

Hope made one very scathing look towards the Belstaff coat, the dark blue scarf knotted around Sherlock's neck, and the floppy dramatic curls that framed a long, thin face and bow-shaped lips. The silence was telling; John was wondering how did Hope convey his absolute scepticism towards the idea of Sherlock and 'undercover' converging in the Venn diagram of life.

Lestrade interrupted. “As the bearer of bad news, we're here to charge you with the murders of Sir Jeffrey Patterson, James Philimore, Beth Davenport, Jennifer Wilson, and John Ferrier.”

Hope looked up. “John Ferrier?”

“We found the body buried in Sussex.”

“Never done it,” came the immediate answer.

“Obviously not,” Sherlock drawled. “A cab-driver estranged from his children does not receive visiting privileges. Also, statistically speaking, mothers are more prone than fathers to killing the children.”

“No,” Hope admitted, but a secretive smile played around his lips. “Now, you know four of them are what I did, and I just told you that I did not kill my son.”

“We found the Jennifer Wilson's phone on you,” Lestrade started. “And we also have the statement of Dr Watson to convict you of attempted murder. The poisonous pills, both of them, we found to be a preparation of aconite.”

“Classic poison,” Hope shrugged.

“Indeed,” Sherlock agreed. “The why or wherefore of this case seems open and shut, Lestrade, so I'll be on my way.”

“I called you here, Mr Holmes, for a reason,” Hope's stare narrowed down to him. “To listen to my statement. I will not leave this room alive.”

Reluctantly, Sherlock sat back down as Lestrade produced a recorder.

“The statement of Jefferson Hope, charged with the murders of what is termed as Serial Killer Cabbie. Witnesses: Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade, Mr Sherlock Holmes, Dr John Watson. Mr Hope, please note that anything you say here can and will be used against you in court.” The recorder was set down in front of them.

“I understand,” Hope affirmed verbally. “Now, where do I start…

“Three years ago, the doctors told me that I had a brain aneurysm. Incurable. Any breath could be my last. It was also around that time that the ex decided to leave me for a boyfriend, taking the kids with her. John and Lucy, both of them... the light of my life, gone. Now, then I decided to play a game. A game of life and death. I got two identical pills, one bad, one good. I put them in identical glass bottles, and put them in front of my... victims. My passengers, randomly chosen. I used a fake gun to make them choose a bottle. They picked a bottle, I took the other, and then...”

A dry sob interrupted. “We took our medicine. I've outlived four lives this way. That's the most fun I could have with an aneurysm.”

“There's more, obvious,” Sherlock commented. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have called Lestrade to bring me.”

Hope nodded. “When I die they won't get much, my kids. Not a lot of money in driving cabs. I have a sponsor.”

“You have a- what?” John hesitated, but kept silent.

“For every life I take, money goes to my kids,” Hope explained, giving a baffled Sherlock a meaningful look. “The more I kill, the better off they'll be. Nicer than you think.”

“Who would sponsor a serial killer?” Lestrade muttered.

“Who would be a fan of Sherlock Holmes?” Hope continued. “My sponsor warned me about Sherlock Holmes. Last night, I went to Baker Street. I intended to drive him to the Roland-Kerr Further Education College; being a cabbie means you know all the good spots to commit murder. My tyres were shot out before we could leave, and there and then Scotland Yard came. Right before anything else, Lucy tumbled down… and she was dead-”

Hope’s voice shook. “E- End.”

“Who is this sponsor?” Sherlock whispered as Lestrade clicked the recorder off. “You didn't want to admit it in the presence of evidence. Why?”

“You won't do anything to him,” the cabbie morosely admitted. “He's too powerful. Walls have ears, you know. But, there’s nothing on earth you can threaten me with now. My son and daughter are... dead.”

“If you give me the name,” Sherlock murmured in a low voice. “I will bury whoever he is that caused her to die.”

“Why? She's dead...”

“Perhaps because when a young prepubescent female turns up dead, the Met goes up in arms?” Sherlock leaned forward. “Why did both your son and daughter die?”

He continued further at Hope's expression. “Perhaps your daughter fell in with a truly terrible crowd. Maybe there was evidence of abuse. Maybe, and the most likely scenario, is that your sponsor simply had no intention of paying, and so he eliminated the immediate beneficiaries. You’re an estranged father; it’s not exactly strange that you might not know-”

“Sherlock,” John whispered.

“In exchange?” Sherlock pressed with barely concealed patience. “Come now, you’re a clever man. You know that without incentive, the Ferrier case is going to be dismissed as something completely unrelated, then it’ll be a cold case. But your daughter… maybe your sponsor just didn’t want to cough up.”

“That’s just stupid.” John snapped.

Hope looked down, all the winds from his sails gone as he considered his case. It was a very short decision. “I didn’t have direct contact. Emails, texts, things like that. But… but my John and Lucy… they’re dead. You investigate them, Mr Holmes. In exchange for the name... find the bastards who contributed to her death. _Destroy_ them.”

Sherlock inclined his head.

“The name is…” Hope took a deep breath. “...Moriarty. ”

Wordlessly, Sherlock got up and swept out of the room, John following a heartbeat later. “Thank you” followed them.

“Indeed,” Sherlock mumbled as the door closed behind him with a ponderous ring.

“Got a case, then?” John asked.

“The disappearance of Lucy Ferrier.”

If John had a cup of tea in hand, he would have choked. As it was, he nearly choked. “Um... what?”

“Moriarty,” Sherlock looked delighted. “And Lucy Ferrier. Right now, there's a missing girl that someone bothered to disappear from a crime scene in front of an entire investigative team and myself. It's Boxing Day, it must be. Boxing Day... does come after Christmas... right?”

At that, John nearly did an about-face. “You're telling me that... you... _you_? Really?”

“Irrelevant to The Work,” Sherlock loftily turned up his collar. “What does it matter to the work if Boxing Day comes after Christmas?”

“Because it affects how people view the case?”John suggested.

“Explain.”

“Well, if it's a festive mood, then finding out that bloody murder's been committed usually puts a damper on people's plans.”

Sherlock sniffed. “Boring parties, simple presents and fire hazards in the form of tinsel and trees. A murder would _improve_ the atmosphere.”

“Not to normal people.”

“Boring,” Sherlock muttered. “But why would Jeff Hope not react over the death of John Ferrier, but cry over the death of Lucy?”

John did not answer.

“... bit not good?” Sherlock volunteered.

“It's... an older brother thing,” John decided. “John Ferrier was older, Lucy Ferrier younger. Hope probably assumed that the brother could take care of himself, and when the news came in... probably delayed shock.”

Sherlock just rolled his eyes.

A black car rolled out in front of New Scotland Yard as Sherlock exited, and there John seized in preparation of the elaborate pantomime.

“Oh,” John spoke up as the black car came rolling along and Mickey clambered out. “Sherlock, that's- him, that's the man I was talking to you about.”

“I know exactly who that is,” Sherlock mumbled with the force of extreme melodrama that made John want to laugh again, but he's laughed enough, laughed enough that the memory of Jeff Hope watching his daughter's skull smash open on the pavement in front of him could return in a morbid vengeance.

“So, another case cracked,” Mickey drawled as an opening spiel. “How very public-spirited. Though that's never really your motivation, is it.”

“What are you doing here?” Sherlock snarled.

“As ever, I'm concerned about you.”

“Yes, I've been hearing about your _concern_.”

“Always so aggressive,” Mickey tutted. “Didn't it ever occur to you that you and I belong on the same side?”

“Oddly enough, no.”

“We have more in common than you like to believe. This petty feud between us is simply childish. People will suffer. And you know how it always upset Mummy.”

John's eyebrows knitted together, and he had to force himself not to giggle.

“I upset her?” Sherlock echoed. “Me? It wasn't me that upset her, Mycroft!”

“No,” John interrupted, to add verisimilitude, “no, wait. Mummy, who's Mummy?”

“Mother. Our mother,” Sherlock corrected. “This is my brother Mycroft. Putting on weight again?” he added snidely.

“Losing it, in fact.” Mycroft smugly replied.

“He's your brother?” John clarified.

“Of _course_ he's my brother.”

“So he's not-” John hesitated as Mickey, or Mycroft, directed a look at him. _What are you doing?_

_Making it look real,_ John used Ebay’s telepathy to communicate.

“Not what?” Sherlock asked.

“I don't know, criminal mastermind?” John finished.

“Close enough,” Sherlock relented.

“For goodness's sake,” Mycroft huffed, getting into the act. “I occupy a minor position in the British government.”

“He _is_ the British government,” Sherlock corrected. “When he's not too busy being the British Secret Service or the CIA on a freelance basis. Hello, Mycroft. Try not to start a war before I get home, you know what it does for the traffic.”

Sherlock left.

John lingered. “So when you say you're concerned about him, you actually _are_ concerned.”

“Yes, of course.” Mickey, or Mycroft – and god no wonder he preferred Mickey, compared to a name like _Mycroft_ – answered.

“I mean, it actually _is_ a childish feud?”

“He's always been so resentful,” and there was the dry humour John knew. “You can imagine the Christmas dinners.”

Repeat everything to be said. Improvise the pantomime. Never let the fairies be seen, or let signs of magic be known. “Yes. Well, no. No.”

John walked away after Sherlock, with that parting shot. “Still want me to help pay rent?”

Sherlock shrugged, not looking at him, but he was grinning ever so slightly. There was a slight pause before the man suggested, “Lunch?”

“Starving.”

“There's a good Chinese at the end of Baker Street, stays open till two,” Sherlock lectured as they walked away from the crime scene, John's Sig a heavy weight by his spine. “You can always tell a good Chinese at the bottom third of the door handle. We can investigate Baker Street later.”

It was after lunch, pleasantly full on Chinese street food and now standing on the roof, that John contemplated the roof where he had shot Lucy Ferrier.

“One shot, to take out the tyres,” Sherlock muttered. “Ballistics say a .455, but that can’t be right. What kind of civilian would use a high-calibre bullet for sniper work? A very good shot, then, and with a special handgun.”

“Special?” John asked.

“Mmm,” Sherlock flashed up a photograph of the bullet hole in his phone. “Two-six-five grain seventeen-point-two gram solid lead round-nosed bullet, if I am right, which I am. Webley .455 Mark I cartridge bullet, used to stop the car. Presumably, the same bullet, and hence the Webley revolver, was used to kill the late Miss Ferrier as well. John, scan around for the caps.”

John could have told him that there weren’t any. All the bullets he conjured disappeared the moment the transformation was over. “Right. Erm… shouldn’t we tell the police?”

“Don’t you understand, John?” Sherlock rounded on him, excited. “Assume that the man who shot the tyres out last night and Lucy Ferrier’s murderer was the same person, then that means that he could only have been standing on the roof of our building. Add that it’s an old Webley revolver that the shooter was toting-”

“How’d you know it’s an old revolver?” John bluntly asked, earning an eye-roll from Sherlock.

“No one makes Mark I .455 bullets anymore,” Sherlock explained. “Old bullets imply equally old gun, but forensics seem to have _misplaced_ the bloody bullet.” The italics were clearly audible in his words, crisp to a fault.

“Either way, we know that he was standing out here, using a large-calibre revolver loaded with ancient, collector’s edition bullets.” Sherlock blithely continued. “That means expert work, right there, to hit the tyres so quickly.”

“Right,” John drawled, turning to consider the roof entrance longingly. “And?”

“He stood in this exact spot, and here…” Sherlock paused.

“Yes?” John enquired.

“If Lucy Ferrier was held here, then… it’s impossible for the shooter to tote her body over the edge from here.” Sherlock waved. “And… she must have been standing over… there. There is no way to get from the roof to that ledge, no matter how nimble a twelve-year-old girl is. At least, not unwillingly.”

“What does that mean?”

“I…” Sherlock closed his mouth. “That’s the beauty of it. A nice puzzle to stew over with nicotine.”

“Right,” John nodded as he followed the bustling detective indoors. “You do that. I’ve got an errand to run.”

* * *

 

About three hours later, a flying shoe with enough force to create a crater in the stone wall near his head forcibly reminded John why it was a bad idea to casually approach a spooked Puella Magi.

“Who are you?” Soo-Lin stood, legs bent to jump, but unsure. She had transformed; her hair tied back in a decorated bun where her Soul Gem gleamed, the _cheongsam_ she wore was yellow, and a patterns of black tiny swallow-like birds danced across the front of it. Her shoes, the kung-fu sneakers John had seen once or twice in some Jackie Chan movie, gleamed gold as a new pair formed on her feet instantly after one had nearly crushed John's skull.

John raised a hand as the next projectile shoe arced, and the shoe barely grazed his elbow as he dodged. “Wait! Wait! There's a misunderstanding!”

“How?” Soo-Lin retorted. “A strange man I have never met walks in, invite me out, and hints as to this... this... and the QB- are you working for him?!”

“Wait, wait,” John soothed, lifting the silver ring off of his finger.

Soo-Lin's eyes widened as the etched ring transformed into the silver-white egg-shaped gem John's souls had dwelt in for over twenty years. One hand dodged towards the jade-coloured gem inlaid in her bun. “I've... never heard of a _male_ Magus.”

“You wouldn't have either,” John wryly answered. “According to Ebay – that's the local Incubator – there were other circumstances. One monomaniac later, the idea's abandoned for about two centuries or more. Possibly forever.”

Soo-Lin's expression remained guarded.

John bit back the guffaw that threatened at that deer-in-headlights look. “Erm... well...” Silver-white washed over him, and John discarded the mask he had worn on and off for twenty years.

The army fatigues were a grey that would never stain. The boots themselves were black, steel-toed and shone in the late sun. A beret, also grey-white, perched on his head, and the only nod to his heritage was in the blue-green tartan weave where the grey-white equal-armed Celtic cross hung closely around his neck, the jewel of his Soul Gem set in its heart. A cloth pack hung from its usual place around his belt, and John knew that it would contain literally anything he cared to store and still leave him feeling light, including and up to, once in a very long time ago, an anti-ship missile. The cane, dark green wood and far more suitable than the hospital-issue one John had employed, thudded on the ground into his hand. Of course, the greatest change would be in his face, John knew as soon as Soo-Lin blinked and shook her head.

His own sixteen-year-old voice spoke out from his mouth. “Can we talk?”

* * *

A feline form skidded down a wall. It landed on all fours, the blue mark on its back shimmering ever so slightly. “ _Puella Magi._ ”

“Ah, Ebay,” the Puella Magi by the trestle table barely glanced up, absorbed as she was with the laptop before her. “I’ve just found a possible agent. If I am lucky, perhaps I can prolong Watson’s life by a good seven years.”

“ _The current Watson is a Puer Magi,”_ Ebay argued. “ _Pointless. You prepare as if he would certainly die within the three-year mark. Your mission is pointless, Puella Magi S-_ ”

“I have not chosen a name for this world,” the Puella Magi snapped. “I have neither forgotten nor forgiven you.”

“ _Irene Adler suspects_ ,” Ebay changed the subject. “ _So does the Incubator of this world. It is best to lie low for now, we have time-_ ”

“No!” the Magi snarled. “There’s no time. Nearly a month’s passed. Before Watson is too familiar, I need to remove this world’s Holmes. I need… I need to make this world perfect.”

Ebay’s eyes barely blinked as the door of the room echoed with dull force. “Sebby?”

“Can’t sleep, Jim!” the Magi shouted. “Just turn in! Now!”

“But Sebby-!”

“It’s Sabrina!” the Magi yelled back. “Sabrina, you son of a gun! At least use my damn name!”

“Fine, fine. Someone’s a little cranky~” and the masculine voice faded away.

“ _Moran this time?_ ” Ebay commented. “ _Wasn’t he that baby you exterminated nearly thirty years ago? Killed him in his cradle and took his identity?_ ”

“Not for long,” she admitted.

“ _This is a pointless endeavour. Can you not see that-_ ”

“Ebay. I have proven able in the act of genocide.” the Magi cut in. “The only reason you exist is because you are the sole consciousness of the original world left. I do not mind finding and killing this world’s Incubators either. So, unless you have something usable to add, be silent.”

The Incubator stared with its glassy and too-empty eyes. “ _If I had emotions, I would hate you. I would hate you so much._ ”

“The feeling is very much mutual,” the Magi corrected as she set down the test tubes. “Now, then. The Adler problem.”

* * *

“I wished to run away from the Black Lotus,” Soo-Lin confessed quietly as they took the rooftops. Despite her ability to literally fly, John had pointed out that the incoming airspace from Heathrow would have a fit with conspiracy theories and thus, both Magi were tracking by roof towards the basilica of St Paul's Cathedral. “I wanted to be safe... from them and my brother. So I... Kyubey came. I wished that they would forget me. In exchange... I hunted. Cube after cube after cube... I saved enough. Enough to run from Hong Kong to make it here in England.”

“So a girl with magical powers managed to live undercover from us for what, five years?” John mused as he did a spin, the cane giving a dapper tap as John danced with it.

“No!” Soo-Lin shouted, giggling until she looked her physical age of youth once more. “I hunted here and there, around the Museum. Cubes here and there. Always very fast, very quickly. I've never used more magic than needed.”

“We're the Irregulars,” John offered. “We might not offer much help, but I'm sure that Mickey would love to see another join, Soo-Lin.”

“Call me Lin,” she offered as they stopped for a moment. “John?”

“A Puella Magi died last night,” John solemnly offered. “Her name’s Lucy Ferrier.”

“I- I'm sorry.”

“I didn't know her,” John shook his head. “None of us knew that she was here.”

Lin remained quiet even as they skipped around Paternoster Square. “J- John? The... do you believe in her? The goddess?”

John hesitated. “Why not? I mean, even though the concept of an omnipresent, omnipotent goddess of Puellae Magi is rather ridiculous, and quite odd, but... sometimes, even Magi have the right to believe.”

“I don't know,” Lin answered. “Other than you, and the Incubator, I don't know anyone. But I feel so light, like I can do anything.”

It rained, as expected of London. The rain never touched upon the pair of Magi, as words seemed to reverberate as surely as the ring of Big Ben in Westminster. The words that, somehow, all Magi kept in their hearts in the middle of their lonely, eternal battlefield.

_I will not let your prayers end in despair. You won't curse anyone. You won't torment anyone. I shall take all the misfortune. That's why, until the very end, please keep believing in yourself._


	6. V: Staccato

Heathrow International Airport saw a multitude of arrivals constantly, but infrequent were the clearly juvenile fliers. Yet, a mere two weeks after the Study in Pink case, the Customs and Excise official barely paid attention as the small girl walked towards the counter and handed over the passport.

Barely scanning through it, the official nodded, almost to himself, before stamping it. “Welcome to London.”

“Thank you.” The brunette girl in her school uniform whispered, softly accepting the booklet before breezing past the official, nary a bag in sight. She continued through the crowded halls of Heathrow, filled with the passing of various lives, before she walked out towards London in general. A car awaited her.

The door swung open. She got in.

“I like the schoolgirl look, but I am quite sure that officials tend to pay attention when minors walk in,” Irene commented. Idly, a dark lock was brushed aside as she uncrossed and recrossed legs that ended in dark boots.

“Enough,” the other Puella Magi answered. “You bade me come via Kyubey, on danger of your life. Since you are a valued contact, I will ignore your innuendo and forgive that I had to fly on a budget airline on short notice. I shall send you the bill, Irene Adler.”

Irene leaned back on the upholstery, no longer amused. “Puella Magi like you are no fun to rile. Weren’t we all supposed to be positive and bringers of hope? Akemi Homura-san?”

“I neither know nor care to know,” the newly named Homura replied, still prim and stiff as a porcelain doll. “The billing details have been submitted. Information.”

Irene just shook her head, but nodded. “I have recently joined a man… no. A shadow organisation behind nearly all of London’s organised crime, and more besides. I suppose that he would be… a consulting criminal. The phenomenal success of this group has led to the suspicion of Magi involvement.”

“The involvement of Puellae Magi in all aspects of society is not unusual,” Homura pointed out, calm and placid despite the implications of her statement.

“The deaths of Puellae Magi are,” Irene related. “Charlie Milverton. Frances Peter. Gerda Munro. And each time there’s a barely perceptible signature, of webs… my life is in danger.”

“Someone is killing Puellae Magi,” Homura flatly summarised. “And you think calling in a younger Puella Magi would solve the problem?”

“I was recommended by Kyubey,” Irene’s hands shook. “There’s another Incubator in town. That shouldn’t be possible.”

Homura stared at her, the intense studious kind of stare that had nothing to do with nice times and everything with enhanced interrogation techniques. “Explain.”

“You know how nearly all Incubators are nicknamed QB, right?” Irene explained. “But this one, it’s called Ebay. After the online auction platform. Doesn’t it bear exploring? Hear me out, please. I truly believe that the Magi of England are in danger.”

“Including you,” Homura just shrugged. “I believe that there is a Puer Magi here. Mycroft Holmes-”

“Holmes?” Irene actually laughed. “There’s no way he doesn’t know, meaning that… that he actually _approves_.”

“How fortunate that-” Homura paused as they skidded past a red light. “The car isn’t stopping.”

“Of course not-” Irene cut off, looking out of tinted, reinforced and currently-imprisoning-two-Puellae-Magi windows. “The driver- Godfrey! Godfrey, Kate!”

The doors might have held convenient child safety locks for some reason, but then Irene’s ring shimmered. A magic-reinforced kick broke the locks, before Irene tore through and threw herself into oncoming traffic. The lithe body shrouded in dark blue curled in as it was rammed by a Fiat, and then Irene felt her back hit a nearby lamp-post. Strings shot out almost immediately, the carmine threads binding her to the painted iron. Irene drew a breath, right before a tartan hat of green, blue and red overlay[i]made its presence under her nose and the business end of a gun found itself on the dark blue jewel around her neck.

Tartan-hat flipped, just missing the hail of bullets headed for her, and Irene only just managed to dive down in time. Under the hat, eyes of verdigris focused in a brief moment upon the Puella Magi in dark purple outerwear with black with purple diamond-pattern tights, and aiming a Beretta 92FS at her.

The enemy Puella Magi licked her lips. One hand reached up to touch the carmine gem at the base of her throat. A chatelaine belt jingled under the cloak.

“Acting in public-” Irene’s eyes darted around, quickly checking for cameras. “No cameras…”

“But, this proves that, there is something unusual going on here,” Homura pointed out, the muzzle of the Beretta still aimed. “I don’t know what you want, but I will not stand by and let you murder a Puella Magi.”

The hat inclined, before the folds of the cloak fanned out.

Homura fired.

The black cloak whirled to flash red diamond-patterned tights, and red strings lashed to cut the Beretta to pieces. Homura flung the broken weapon out in her escape, and the steel was turned into so much shrapnel in the tangles of scarlet. Yet, her aim was done; the mysterious Puella Magi was currently fighting with Irene Adler. A riding crop met a short knife, its loop swishing slightly as Irene grunted from the effort. The other Magi stepped back before pressing onwards, the knife gliding towards her hand. Irene dropped the crop, instead using her gloved fingertips to scratch at the other, but reared back as blood welled on her cheek.

The black cloak under the tartan hat whirled away at another volley of gunshots, and Irene stared as it landed right on the roof of the car, tugging onto a red string… that trailed to her arm. Irene stumbled, staring up into the barrel of a gun that was not aimed at her face, but rather at her collar.

Homura aimed, shooting the hat and the head it was perched upon. Irene ducked away, to where her would-be murderer continued standing, cauliflower and blood spattered onto her face. Rapt fascination warred with disgust watching the vitreous humour and the cornea reform from where the skull had caved in from the bullet.

“Homura Akemi,” the tartan hat bobbed, the features of the face that bore it hidden underneath. “Didn’t you use this move before?”

“It seems like you know my name,” Homura acknowledged.

“So you exist in this world too,” came the rebuttal. “You don’t change, no matter how many worlds are traversed.”

“Worlds?”

“No matter,” the tartan hat bobbed as the Puella Magi whirled on one foot, before the red heels of her shoes clacked on asphalt and she ran, aiming at Irene again.

“Wait!” Homura ducked, running at top speed towards the blur of black and red as sirens echoed behind her. The three Puellae Magi took off, ducking under CCTV cameras, outright breaking some or shrouding themselves in magic, veils of diamonds and opals and fiery ribbons spiralling with the staccato of bullets and the whoosh of ribbons and the shrieks of voices too high-pitched to possibly be human.

The tartan hat nearly fell off of her head as the red Puella Magi stopped on top of the nearest warehouse roof, ducking behind the water tower as a bullet pinged off the painted steel. “Careful. Magic isn’t as well known in this world as others.”

“Why do you know my name?” Homura demanded.

“Seems superfluous to ask why you're out to kill me," Irene added, having drawn a cinquedea from... somewhere. The opera dress of her magic certainly did not look up to concealing the short sword anywhere on her person.

“Why did you continue with your Faustian waltz, Homura Akemi?” the girl rebutted, ignoring Irene for the moment. “It is for the same reason.”

“Are you behind the Incubator known as Ebay?” Homura demanded. “What are you intending?!”

“So obvious, Akemi,” the tut was chiding. “I don’t care about how many timelines you reverse to save your beloved; neither should you care about mine.”

“Why do you know?” Homura nearly screamed as another volley of bullets pinged and punched through steel. Water dribbled through the nearby tanks, stale from long months of storage. “Why do you know about Madoka? _Who_ are you?!”

A winning smile flashed, before the girl leapt off the building, laughing. Homura jumped behind her, following her in free-fall. Behind her, wings spread, wings of shadows and unknown shapes, that were bound by the thread that lingered in the winds.

Homura’s violet eyes widened at the expanse of cement pavement that she was about to greet personally. High above, suspended in a web of red thread, the tartan hat bobbed in a brief moment, almost in mocking salute towards Irene as the gun was drawn.

"Why?" Irene gasped as she met the eyes underneath the hat.

_Bang_.

Down below, Homura drew a shaky breath as her ribs and skull began to knit together with her leg bones. Her Soul Gem glimmered as the Puella Magi literally clawed her waypast the pavement towards the shadowed alleys, leaning against a dumpster and ignoring the blood flow that led back to her.

“That Puella Magi…” Homura reflected. “To attack us like this... in broad daylight... Why…?”

The Puella Magi flinched some more as bones knitted and skin adhered to heal, scars vanishing with magic along with her wings.

“Where should I start…” Homura sighed. “If it was Mitakihara… I would have asked the others to keep a lookout- the Incubator. If… If I could find a familiar face Of course. The soldier. His name… grey-white Soul Gem. Male.”

She paused, perhaps realising her lack of funds and that she was stranded in a strange city. “Ah. This is going to be a while.”

Violet light emanated from her body as her clothes changed in the blink of an eye, and a Japanese schoolgirl simply walked out, the bloodstain on the pavement ignored until the next cleaning vehicle came along.

Of course, by then Homura Akemi was no longer present. Neither was Irene Adler. The world went on, unknowing of the magical presences within either the world itself or the City of London, and that was fine. That was all fine.

 

* * *

A beat tapped out on one foot, as beakers bubbled. The makeshift laboratory was cold, perhaps far cold than should be possible, even as the tartan-hatted Magi dropped the bloodstained hat onto the table alongside the corpse of the fallen Puella Magi. “Your warning is in vain, Incubator.”

Its white tail flicking from side to side, the blue-tattooed Incubator stared with soulless eyes towards her. “ _Not completely in vain, judging from your panic. You remember that existence. Homura Akemi._ ”

“The danger of the future,” the Puella Magi absently agreed. “Not for a while yet. We should be safe.”

“ _We have yet to change much of the past by being present in it,_ ” Ebay replied, though its mouth never moved. “ _The danger persists._ ”

“I don’t know,” she gloated in response. “I’m all for the enslavement of your species as a whole, no matter which universe or time, because you already understand what you sparked when you came to humanity, didn’t you?”

“ _We gave all of you civilisation_ ,” it replied. “ _Scientific advancements, ideas, mindsets. It was a fair trade for the fate of the universe._ ”

“Well, that’s no longer a problem from our universe, is it?” the Magi archly replied. “It should have died that slow heat death that you were so keen to stop. No matter which universe… no matter which time, or place, or era, it is not your problem.”

“ _I don’t understand you humans,_ ” it commented, albeit warily. “ _What has possessed you? Surely one fallen Puella Magi is not worth the deaths of all worlds to soothe your despair._ ”

“Ebay…” the Magi growled. “For that, I will involve all of my power into telling her exactly how her future came to pass. Then, we will stay long enough for your brethren to experience the throes of mortality, as the rest of our world’s Incubators once did.”

A pause, and then… “ _So it is madness,_ ” the alien calmly analysed.

Whatever expression she wore caused the Incubator to crouch in warning. “A power, greater than hope and deeper than despair, that you as a race would never reach. It is the power your civilisation forgot.”

Ebay bristled. “ _We forget nothing._ ”

“In one thousand, eight hundred and ninety-four worlds, you have,” absently, the Magi watched as one of the beakers began to steam. “The pattern has yet to change.”

 

* * *

Between joining back up with the Irregulars and Lin, keeping in touch with Mycroft's mysterious Diogenes Club gossip network – further proof, if needed, that Mycroft was still a ponce in every sense of the word even though the diet was strictly unnecessary to all of them – and keeping his flatmate ignorant of his being a Puer Magi, most of a month passed before the next case came, and in the interim was what Hilda had referred to as 'the stalking of the British Sherlock' and Lin had actually taken her side with it.

Generally, Sherlock would not be a difficult man to live with. Despite the misappropriation of his laptop, handphone, and occasionally the bathtub for experiments of natures unknown, he was quiet in his ways and habits. Sherlock's world in the lull between cases seemed to rotate between the labs and mortuary of Barts' and Baker Street. He took a walk now and then, but other than that it seemed all proper and correct. Now and then he lay for days on end on the sitting-room couch and made like a zombie or a corpse, hardly uttering a word or moving a muscle other than the usual cry of 'Bored!'.

John surreptitiously glanced for tracks now and then, but Sherlock seemed to have stayed clean for a rather long time.

Mycroft had asked when was the happy announcement forthcoming. Mrs Hudson kept referring to occasions where John shouted abuse at Sherlock as 'domestics'. John would have liked to refute everything, but when even Lin pointed out how his conversational pieces tended to start off with Sherlock's latest hare-brained experiment involving fingers and the butter dish, John had realised the futility of it.

He was not studying medicine, John had narrowed down the boundaries of the experiment. Neither did Sherlock appear to have pursued any course which might fit him for a degree in forensic science or any other scientific field. Within eccentric limits, the knowledge contained within that mind was extraordinarily ample and minute.

(For example, Sherlock himself had talked about the uses of identifying over two hundred types of tobacco. John had pointed out that Sherlock's own comment on the possibility of sustaining a smoking habit in London meant that the tobacco study would be largely confined to cases outside of the city. Sherlock had proceeded to sulk for three days on end.)

As remarkable as his knowledge was, the only thing that matched it was his ignorance.

“It's the solar system!” John echoed. “How can you not know it?!”

“You're surprised,” the man himself commented in surprise. “Now that I do know it, I shall do my best to forget it.”

“Huh?”

“Hard drive,” Sherlock waved. “My brain is a hard drive, with limited memory. Delete.”

“The solar system!” John had guffawed at length. “We are never getting you into astronomy.”

So the completed list of the limits of Sherlock Holmes ran in this manner:

  1. _Literature.—Nil._
  2. _Philosophy.—Nil._
  3. _Astronomy.—Nil._
  4. _Politics.—Feeble. Does not seem to know or care who is the current Prime Minister. Suspect the latter more than the former._
  5. _Botany.—Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons generally._ _Knows, or  cares, nothing of practical gardening; exception when it concerns a body buried in the ground. Did not need to know about sodding hydrangeas, thank you!_
  6. _Geology.—Practical, but limited. Tells at a glance different soils_ _from each other, and corresponding locations in London. Does not know what is Stonehenge, unless concerning its significance as a site of possible ritual sacrifice._
  7. _Chemistry.—Profound. Focused on toxins, poisons and explosives._
  8. _Anatomy.—Accurate, but unsystematic. Currently lack evidence to check on greater depth._
  9. _Sensational News.—Incredible. Appears to know every detail of every serial killer case perpetrated in the century._
  10. _Plays the violin well... when he's not massacring it._
  11. _Has practical knowledge of British law._



“Did I get everything?” John turned to the invisible Incubator that had migrated towards Baker Street to retrieve his used Cubes.

Ebay's wide, unchanging button-like eyes looked like they would convey sarcasm enough to crush his very ego, if it were inclined to. “ _You have observed him enough to compile a verifiable list of the habits and limits of Sherlock Holmes. Your list could be titled ‘stalking of the British Sherlock', another aspect of human communication I do not, and care not to, comprehend. He steals your items on a regular basis, and so far he has done nothing to assist in the upkeep of these rooms you share, yet you have not moved out even though you place your identity as a Puer Magi at risk._ ”

“And... then?” John asked. “Anyway, did I miss anything?”

“ _Reiterate everything I have just said, and even Kyubey would draw the same conclusion that you are obsessed with Sherlock Holmes. On our civilisation's star, such open behaviour is a sign of psychological disturbance that ranks second only to the emotion of love you humans hold so dear._ ”

“Great. So I'm psychologically disturbed to an alien species,” John sighed. “Go pester Mickey or something, I can’t deal with you today.”

“ _Adaptation requires time and sporadic appearances, not my continued presence in her sphere. Approaching Puella Magi always requires them to decide an element of control. It is for this reason that your Irregulars remained a loose-knit group at its heart._ ”

“Of course. Because you're all for human sanity, which is something you don't comprehend.” ~~~~

“ _Why would I?_ ” Ebay questioned. “ _I have seen your lower species rise from the ashes of this sphere, and still I shall not comprehend that, for to comprehend requires that one thing Incubators fundamentally lack._ ”

“That... how does that work?” John asked. “I've never actually asked this question. I know you guys are a single consciousness or something, so the hundred or so times we killed you over and over didn't take.”

“ _The last time I attempted to explain it, you told me never to do so ever again._ ”

“Enlighten me.”

“ _The closest human concept to the collective consciousness of the Incubators is the cloud computing system. Therefore, the Incubator population serves as a large number of computers terminals upon which a variety of computing concepts are connected through a real-time communication network. Hence, the Magical Messenger program run on many connected Incubators at the same time, therefore the Incubator system remains a network-based service which appear to be provided by real server hardware, which in fact are served up by virtual hardware, simulated by software running on one or more real machines. Such virtual servers do not physically exist, and can therefore be moved around and scaled on the fly without affecting the end user-_ ”

John tore up the list, and for good measure set fire to the shreds with a nearby lighter. “I give up. Just... never tell me again. Ever.”

“Missing diamond case!” Sherlock shouted, barging in dressed in a three-piece suit as he put up his coat and scarf. “We're out of milk.”

“Sounds fun,” John commented, glancing towards the empty space where Ebay had been standing just now. “You didn't buy the milk again, did you?”

“Doesn't matter!” Sherlock moaned, having permanently slumped into his armchair. “The peons of the common man keep pestering me with their funny little problems!”

“Remember, Bond night,” John gave him the index finger as he took his jacket and walked out.

He swung the jacket out, the sleeve catching around the neck of the robed swordsman hanging on the ceiling. Without pausing, John marched down, dragging the thumping and struggling man behind him.

“Mrs Hudson?” John called, studiously masking the swordsman’s struggles. “My leg's smarting, mind if I take the back? I need to go get food.”

“Oh, John. Sure, go ahead.”

“Thank you!” John thumped hard on the robed swordsman's back, making more noise as he opened the back doors of 221 Baker Street and threw him out to the back alleys, jacket still in hand and coiled around the swordsman's neck. John kicked out, trapping the pulwar under his foot as the robed swordsman was promptly knocked out with the other leg.

John picked up the pulwar, noting the pattern and its sharpness before he put it away in a pack and coiled the pack on his belt. As he turned and walked towards the Tesco to do battle with uncooperative chip-and-pin machines, the bag had disappeared.

Five minutes later, Sherlock had taken a look outside at the unconscious would-be assassin and blinked, before scrabbling to piece together John's list or the ashen remnants thereof. John resisted the impulse not to laugh out loud.

John could picture it, while standing in the self-checkout aisle, the near-surgical calm and care that Sherlock used to glance through all the scraps, and then Sherlock... sat down. Stunned. Barely moving. It was nice to show off now and again-

_Card not authorised. Please use an alternative method of payment. Card not authorised. Please use an alternative method of payment._

Irritated, John sent a pulse of magic at it. It trembled, before the machine whirred, spat and began emitting smoke.

“Oh, for god's sake,” John sighed.

The sprinklers went off.

“You took your-” Sherlock's words died as a sopping wet John walked in. “Was it raining?”

“No, the machine went up in flames and sprinklers went off with the bloody fire alarm. Yeah, I didn't get the shopping.”

“Why not?”

“I had a row in the shop with a chip and PIN machine.”

“You had a row... with a machine?”

“Sort of.” John shrugged with the nonchalance of a man who had decided ‘fuck the crazy world, let’s just go with the flow’. To be fair, that was how he dealt with some of the days as well. “It sat there and I shouted abuse at it. Then it went up in flames. Have you got cash?”

“Take my card,” Sherlock casually offered.

“You could always go yourself, you know,” John snapped as he headed for the kitchen. “You've been sitting there all morning, you've not even moved since I left. What about that case you were offered... that Jaria diamond?”

“Not interested. I sent them a message.”

“Sherlock, as your doctor-”

“I haven't fallen sick in a while.”

“As your _friend_ ,” John corrected. “I insist, you have to get out!”

At that, Sherlock stood up with a clap. “I need to go to the bank.”

“Enjoy yourself,” John absently nodded, fishing for the papers.

It took a few seconds before John realised that not only was Sherlock immobile, the man was giving him a look. “Yes? Bank?”

“Are you... coming?”

John gave him a flat look. “Job-hunting. Busy.”

“Boring,” Sherlock dismissed.

“But practical,” John corrected. “You see, I'm neither paid to lie down on a couch and think, nor do I have the British government for a brother. I’m responsible for my fiscal health, and right now one month of smooching around with you is my limit. My bloody debit balance is on the brink, and if I want any hope of making my half of the rent or keep my license, I'm going to need it.”

“We could split the fee.”

“What fee? Unlike you, the rest of us mere mortals need to _work_. For _pay_.”

“I...” Sherlock paused. “You're not coming?”

John gave the man a look, the man wrapped up in his Belstaff coat and blue scarf and untouchable and prickly and lonely and vulnerable all at once. It seemed to be the default look for Sherlock when attempting to wheedle him along.

“Fine. Let me get my coat.”

The smile that answered flashed for a mere second, just a beat of some serendipity.

It was serendipitous. Having walked into the swanky building and been introduced to the likes of Sebastian Wilkes, John could empathise. He would’ve liked to one-up the man too. Maybe that was why he let Sherlock get away with introducing him as a friend.

“Right, we were at uni together, and this guy had a trick he used to do,” the smarmy man, Sebastian Wilkes, smirked.

“It's not a trick,” Sherlock butted in.

“He could look at you and tell your whole life story,” Sebastian continued.

“Yes, I've seen my friend do it,” John neutrally answered.

Cue the stunned expressions from both the other men. Despite John’s own reluctance to build anything meaningful between him and Sherlock, Sebastian's expression and Sherlock’s hidden joy was well worth it.

“Put the wind up everyone, we hated it.” Sebastian commented, with the air of having decided to ignore John’s errant comment. “We'd come down to breakfast in the common hall and this freak would know you'd been shagging the previous night.”

“I simply observed,” Sherlock demurred, even as John's grip tightened on the chair and he desperately wished to punch Sebastian's head in. Or leave him in the next wave of wraiths. That was nice; the ponce torn apart by the curses of humanity. John spared a guilty moment to actually consider that prospect.

“Go on, enlighten me,” Sebastian challenged. “Two trips a month, flying all the way around the world, you're quite right. How could you tell? Are you going to tell me there's a stain on my tie from some special kind of ketchup you can only buy in Manhattan?”

“No, I...”

“Is it the mud on my shoes?” Sebastian sneered.

“... I was just chatting with your secretary outside,” came the bland reply. “She told me.”

A beat of silence passed before Sebastian gave a false, horsey laugh and a sardonic clap, plus a change of subject. “I'm glad you could come over, we've had a break-in.”

Someone had broke into the office of the former chairman in the middle of the night, splashed paint around and left within a minute. John was left slightly more unimpressed by Sebastian offering a five-figure sum for Sherlock to find a hole in the security.

“Two trips around the world this month,” John muttered as he left behind Sherlock. “You didn't ask his secretary, you just said that to irritate him. How did you know?”

“Did you see his watch? Time was right, but the date was wrong. Set two days ago. Crossed the date line twice but didn't notice.”

“But... within a month?”

“New Breitling, only came out in February.”

“Okay,” John accepted. “So do you think we should sniff around here a bit longer?”

“Got everything I need to know already, thanks.”

“Hmm?”

“That graffiti was a message,” Sherlock elaborated. “Someone at the bank, working on the trading floors. We find the intended recipient, and...”

“...they'll lead us to the person who sent it?” John continued.

“Obvious.”

“Well, there's three hundred people up there, who's it meant- pillars.”

Sherlock doubled over, nearly folding himself in half on the escalator. “Continue.”

“Pillars and screens,” John answered after a pause. “Very... cosy. Not a lot of places to sh- see.”

“Narrows the field considerably,” Sherlock agreed, still eyeing John. “Also, the message was left at eleven thirty-four last night. That tells us a lot.”

“Someone was working overtime?” John suggested.

“Traders come to work at all hours,” Sherlock corrected. “Some trade with Hong Kong in the middle of the night. That message was intended for someone who came in at midnight. Not many Van Coons in the phone book. Taxi!”

The black hackney gave John a beat of pause, mainly because of the wraith-like miasma that seemed to emanate from it. Sherlock issued the directions, John swallowed, and resolved to do nothing to attract attention to himself. That suggestion went out of the window as the hackney rolled straight into the invisible miasma.

Beside him, John felt Sherlock’s head fall onto his shoulder. John saw the driver’s head roll back, the car rolling to a halt as the engine cut to silence. Wraith swarms were the bane of John's life, and continued to be even as he stormed out of the cab.

_Ebay, where the fuck are you?_

_As ever, eloquent,_ the thing’s voice replied. _You might want to prepare quickly._

Grey-white enveloping his form to melt away into his fatigues. He frowned down at the blue line that had developed in his Soul Gem, touching his cap for a brief moment before staring at the approaching hordes of demons. Bone-white, shrouded in cloth of some horribly boring shade of ecru, empty sockets blockaded by rectangles of white turned to him.

John climbed onto the car’s roof, slowly watching the swarm of wraiths. As one claw dived for him, John touched the cool black steel of the vehicle. The hackney reared back, narrowly dodging the clawed hands of the wraiths as John reached for his pack and pulled out the Webley revolver within.

“I need bigger guns!” All six shots were fired, the grey-white motes of photons smashing through the six demons as he dropped the revolver and reached in for the Jezail rifle already present within. “Bigger!”

The shots connected again, and John dropped the empty revolver to grab the Desert Eagle that appeared. “See if you can rustle up an anti-tank weapon, there’s a good man,” he spoke to nothing in particular.

Fifteen more demons fell, leaving John to drop the heavy rifle to reach inside.

A gold shoe flipped, exploding on contact to fell two demons, and John nodded in acknowledgment as Lin dived from the overcast, miasma-shrouded skies.

"What's going on?" she yelled, the gold shoes reforming on her feet as she spun, feathers billowing out by her heels before the shoe-missiles impacted and hit more demons.

"Stray swarm," John panted, and the cab under his perch glowed grey-white as the engine revved and backed away. There was a hollow _thunk_ that had John hoping that Sherlock hadn't hit his head, but then, as he pulled the RPG and fired, the explosion rattled in a concussive wave of sound.

In a split second, time itself seemed to stop.

As John watched, bullets peppered through the demons. All fifteen fell at once as she landed in a show of dissipating wings of mist.

The Puella Magi landed on her feet, dropping the smoking Beretta 92FS into her intricate silver shield. The weapon disappeared without a clank, before heeled shoes tapped on the asphalt.

“You are a very hard man to find, John Watson,” the dark-haired Puella Magi in the purple-coloured Goth school uniform began in a monotone.

"John?" Lin hissed.

The last time John had heard that voice, or seen the red ribbon in her hair that was the only splash of hot colour anywhere near her, it had been fighting off a contingent of wraiths. Joy warred with worry; from what he recalled, this particular Magi was too occupied with her own territory in Japan to travel often. Her business must be urgent. “Oh, Homura, right? Erm… didn’t you live in Japan?”

“I was called here on a request,” the purple-dressed Puella Magi carefully replied. Her face and tone remained expressionless. "Irene Adler called me to this city, before she was killed about two weeks back. I have been stranded for that same amount of time since that event."

“Two weeks-” John blanched. “What about your passport? Are you-”

“I have been staying in a Travelodge,” Homura blandly replied. “My visa is still within limits, and I have been looking around for hints as to the trouble Adler might have faced.” She looked at the shield attached to her arm, as if looking at her watch. “We are running short on time. I shall take my leave.”

“Wait!” John called. “Erm, Lin, this is Homura. Homura, Soo-Lin Yao. How do I- _we_ contact you?”

Homura paused, before dropping a small burner phone into his hand. Lin barely reacted at her sudden appearance on the engine hood of the cab. “I admit, this is my first time using a foreign area code, but I have mastered it. Call that number within.”

“R- Right,” John pocketed the phone, nodding. “How ‘bout a message? No way you can miss that, right?”

At this, Homura paused. “...agreed. I  await your message, then, Soo-Lin Yao, John Watson. Where is your address?”

“221B Baker Street," John replied. "Tell Mrs Hudson it’s for John. I’d rather we try not to go for that route, ‘cause there’s my flatmate. He doesn’t know. Lin, my flatmate's inside the cab, the miasma is disappearing, and I'd rather not be caught out.”

"O- Oh!" Lin flushed. "I'm so sorry, I'll go now. Until next time, then?"

"See you then."

“Very well,” Homura turned her back as John got back into the cab.

The Puellae Magi took off at the same time that the telepathic link broke and the miasma cleared.

Though, if she had bothered to hang around, Homura might have noticed the cloaked figure, binoculars breaking in her grip as a head wearing a tartan fedora turned upon the blue-and-white Incubator. “What is the meaning of this, Ebay…?!”

“ _What you believe it to be,_ ” the Incubator replied, a touch cold. “ _He is a Puer Magi. There is no escaping the fate of all Puellae Magi in the end._ ”

A sound issued forth from her lips, the black lace hem of her carmine skirt rustling with her diamond-pattern silk stockings and polished buckled shoes and cloak. The black chatelaine belt tinkled.

It took a moment before the Incubator reoriented itself. “ _Why are you laughing?_ ”

“So John is perfect,” the Puella Magi sighed. “How nice… I guess I shall just have to rethink that plan. How very serendipitous, Ebay.”

“ _He will know. There is no deception to be gotten here. Even if you attain this world’s Holmes, Watson will know._ ”

“But you see, I know something you don’t,” the Puella Magi leaned her head back, staring at the absolutely still Ebay with a small smile playing around her lips. Below her, the black hackney continued, unaware of the malevolent entity standing above them. “I know Watson.”

 

 


	7. VI: Glissando

Gang of international antique smugglers masquerading as a Chinese circus aside, John was honestly occupied for the next three days between catching up with Lin, Sherlock's work and his own locum work. For someone who could honestly answer that nothing fazed him, it was keeping everything from Sherlock that was taking its toll on him for two days. John had never been a very proficient liar, and in this situation, it was keeping silent that continued the illusion of normalcy for him.

He was stepping out to meet Homura one day, but Sherlock was still cracking through the Blind Banker case.

"What is with the plebeian lifestyle that you keep conforming to it, John?!" Sherlock called in his own suave version of heckling. "It's _boring_!"

"It pays the rent!" John had hollered back, trying to ignore the part of his brain that screamed for money to settle the month's rent and that what he was about to do technically did not pay.

The Travelodge Homura had directed him to was around the corner from a Tube station. Having gotten away from Sherlock for a brief moment, John waited at the nearby bus stop. Homura exited the Travelodge, she was walking quickly towards the nearest alley.

With a nod, John strode through after her, and the two Magi disappeared up a fire escape after a brief moment.

John blinked as Homura continued to look down towards the ground, but his expression cleared as he spotted a homeless man milling about, looking around for something or someone.

“Someone follows you,” Homura commented.

“One of Sherlock’s guys, I guess,” John hazarded. “What about the CCTV?”

“What do you think?” was the cryptic answer.

“I don’t know.”

Homura reached inside of her shield. “Irene Adler called me because she truly believed that her life was in danger from a Magi killer. I have here the files of known deaths, stolen from Adler’s address. She wanted me to find them, presumably. However, as we were returning from Heathrow Airport, we were attacked in broad daylight, and Irene Adler died. However, before her demise, she gave me the links to a case of  Puellae Magi killings.”

“I… I see,” John’s hand trembled slightly as he reached for the file Homura handed him, flipping through to reach the files. “Are there… common links?”

“I do not know,” Homura reflected. “There seem to be an eclectic distribution.”

Blackmailer. Sailor. Member of the House of Lords. Genteel poverty. “Yes. All of them are Magi?”

“As far as I know, they are like you,” Homura reflected. “Attempting to live a normal life while balancing their duty as Magi. I do not think they will last, though. Our lives are far too lonely for that.”

Clara had married Harry, in that time he was in Afghanistan. Her lifestyle, the uncertainty whether she would even return intact, let alone alive, had driven Harry to drink over worry. “We aren’t alone.”

“No. We aren’t.” Homura never said the other unwritten truth; that it feels so anyway.

“If they are targeting Magi… then  what about me?” John’s brow furrowed. “I mean, there are other Magi in London, and for Irene to know this-”

“And there is the other factor,” Homura interrupted. “The Incubator, Ebay. There should not be such a thing in this universe. The Incubators are named Kyubey, one and all.”

“But I know Ebay,” John echoed. “I made my contract with it. Now you’re telling me that the space fairy thing is really a fairy?!”

“I have been unable to locate the Incubator of our world within London,” Homura said. “But I do not know of the situation within this city, anyway. Anomalies have a way of changing fate."

"Anomalies?" John echoed.

"Kyubey mentioned them before." Homura stared at him. "Girls have a greater reason to gamble their souls on a single wish. To believe in magic, to reach out to the Incubators and fight in exchange for a miracle. It requires both the aptitude to perform magic, and the desperation to accept the destiny of fighting from the Incubators. Sometimes in history... there are humans who awaken the magic in them. These anomalies, who can choose to become Magi, are those that truly change history. To the Incubators, they are dangerous. Anomalous. Heralding."

"Of what?" John asked, his tone hushed.

"I don't know." Homura glanced towards him. "For that reason, if we were to check with your Magi acquaintances within the city, we should be able to find a lead, at least."

“Right,” John nodded, stifling a yawn. “Dammit…”

“We do not need sleep,” Homura observed.

"Wishing the need to sleep away too much, and then I forget what it’s like to be human." John grimaced. He’d learnt that when he started hallucinating a stethoscope doing the tango during one hunt that nearly cost him. “Impossible not to have too much sleep.”

“There is work to be done.”

John sighed. “See, dreams exist to allow us a bit of escape. For a while.”

“Dreams?”

“You know, REM cycles and circadian rhythms that let you believe that everything could be better one day,” John shrugged. “You don’t dream?”

“I have not held cause to dream,” Homura reflected. “They are not all good dreams.”

“There’s that,” John nodded. “Bad dreams are too common for us. Well, erm, shall we find Lin first?”

"I do not think there is a need, Ms Akemi, John."

Both Magi turned around to consider Mycroft Holmes, who merely stood there in his pinstriped suit, his expression bland were it not for the iron grip on the handle of his black umbrella. Beside him, Anthea lounged on her feet, Blackberry out and clicking.

"There are Magi dying," John whispered.

"I know," Mycroft answered. "I believe I have a name to the perpetrators."

"Then what are you waiting for?"

"Evidence."

"There is no evidence that you can't get if you applied those powers of yours, Mickey!" John shouted back.

"It's not that simple," Mycroft replied. "The Magi I work with occupies much of the criminal underworld. Should I overstep the delicate balances of intellect and influence, Europe itself, perhaps the world, to say nothing of our lives, could be at risk. The lives of a few Magi is not worth it."

"Irene is dead, Mickey!" John shouted.

"We have a plan, John," Anthea spoke up. "Please."

"You have no right to disregard her life," John hotly retorted. "Even if you disapproved of her, Mickey!"

"Says the one who abandoned the Irregulars to get shot at," Mycroft snidely hissed. "You are no better than me. I have attempted to protect England in its mortal and magical fronts, whereas you got yourself shipped back because you were fool enough to remain down after taking a bullet!"

"I- There were too many doctors, it would've gotten suspicious-"

"I could have done something," Mycroft grimly replied. "But Saint John must always do things his way, so all of us Magi of London could never stand up to his legacy; not Anthea, not Clara, not I, and Irene felt the most guilt out of us all. So if anything, Irene's death had its roots in you too, _John_."

"I'm not the one who stood by to let Magi get killed on my watch, Mick!"

"We couldn't place surveillance on all of them," Anthea joined in. "That would've been too unexplainable to the SIS-"

"Yes, because England takes precedence over all its Pueri Magi!"

No one knew who drew the first gun, or when John's Webley was staring down Mycroft's eyes or when Mycroft had a sleek, pearl-handled derringer in his hand aimed at John. Or when Homura intervened between them, slapping down the two revolvers with a hand grenade, the safety pin stuck between her teeth.

"You will stop this immaturity right now," Homura spoke around the grenade pin. "You will act as the responsible, reliable Magi that the two of you are, or suffer the consequences. She would not have wanted any of you to do this."

"Irene should not have called her," Mycroft heaved quietly. "She will know."

"Who will know?" Homura demanded.

"The Puella Magi who killed them," Mycroft looked away.

"So you know who she is."

"I am unacquainted with her. Her identity is unknown to me. I only know the one she works with... her work partner, in other words."

"The name," Homura whispered.

"I only wish-" Mycroft gave a single nod.

John side-stepped the stiletto that Anthea had thrown at him, circling to pull a Desert Eagle from his pack. "I'm warning you, Mickey, I am at the end of my rope here. Who?"

"I can't tell you," Mycroft answered.

"Because why? Someone finally got to you?"

"...Yes."

That answer actually held John back. "Huh?"

"The Incubator..." Mycroft held an expression of distaste. "Caring is not an advantage. Particularly when Sherlock is so danger-prone, and is still a candidate for becoming a Puer Magi. Do you understand what I am getting at?"

"That doesn't matter!" Homura retorted. "That should not explain why you have let dozens of Pueri and Puellae Magi die! That does not explain why you have betrayed us, as a Puer Magi-! That you have betrayed her wishes for this ugly world-!"

"Homura?" John dissuaded quietly. "I- it's his brother. It's the Incubators. Mickey... Mycroft... it's because he cares, Homura. It's because he cares that he's turning a blind eye to all of them. That doesn't make it right... but he cares. He cares about his brother, you see."

* * *

The Thames whispers platitudes. _Oranges and lemons, hark, hark, the beggars are coming to town −_

Above, kingfisher feathers fluttered from Lin's golden shoes as she flew.

The golden Puella Magi circled the swarm, unhindered as she easily skated through the air. Sweat dripped down her brow as she continued to fight alone, her only weapons her body and the shoes that she kicked out with, the weapons that she lashed out with −

_I wish that the Black Lotus would forget me so I can run away_

− one of the wraiths fought back, curved claws smacking her into the rail tracks that ran by, causing Lin to gasp as the rails dug into her ribs and then the whistle of the train echoed, and the Puella Magi rolled, coughing as the train nearly missed beheading her.

_John?_ she tried to think, but Ebay was not around to send her thoughts, nor was there any other Incubator in the area−

_If you wish it, infinite possibilities lie before you_

− and she stood and continued to spin, spin and kick out and fight against the wraiths that continued to swarm them, the monsters that were born from the torments and curse. Alone −

_We die every day. We get devoured, maimed, and bleed to death. We disappear. When we do not fall in battle, then we have to lie. We sneak out of home. We come home bruised, and sore, and far too late, and we can never explain why or how._

−There was no life waiting for her. No one who would miss her too much if she disappeared into the miasma, just another of many unsung Magi who fell to the curses at last−

_When it’s not our parents, it’s our friends you are lying to. They ask us what has happened, and why we are suddenly so busy, but we cannot tell them the truth because – they would not believe us anyway. So they ask where were we last night, and what is worrying us, and why we are limping, and we lie to them again, and again, and again. How can we ever become close to another person? We would have to tell them who- no,_ what _we are first, and we don’t want them to get involved. We can’t stop. We can’t ever be anything else._

_How would I build a career when there’s trouble popping up every few seconds?_

−Nothing, no one. Andy at the museum was nice, but there was no way he would ever understand her life. John had told her, told her about Clara who married Harry and Harry driven to drink over worry whether Clara was ever going to come back alive ever again −

_There's no one else to turn to. No one who can fight but us. We don't get sick days, we don’t get a week off on condolence leave. We can never stop fighting alone until the day they kill us_

−Lin collapsed against the brick wall as the last of the demons fell, her gold Soul Gem nestled amongst the little Cubes within the carcasses of the wraiths, the sediment leeched from within the gold by the array of Cubes. A thought flashed in her eyes, once upon a time, of a fire, and a gathering, and the knowledge that though the life would be harder come the dawn, everything could be better, would be better −

_They're not better, are they?_

−would not be alone.

It was a shaking Puella Magi that turned her head to regard the pattern of numbers, the code of the Black Lotus. _Huama,_ flower numbers that danced amongst the brickwork and graffiti, nearly floating on the brick itself.

Slowly, Lin glanced up, realising that, in the glowing city skyline or what she could spot of it from her place by the tracks, there was a shadow scaling the walls.

_My brother. Liang −_

_Hark, hark, the dogs do bark,_   
_The beggars are coming to town._   
_Some in rags, and some in tags,_   
_And one in a red velvet gown._

* * *

If an Incubator could flinch, Ebay would have long done so. The giggling set it on edge, especially since little James Moriarty was present.

Ebay had contracted the Holmes − and what a horrible decision that was, it had underestimated how the Holmes would use his wish to keep Sherlock Holmes away from the world of Magi − for six years then. Two more years until John Hamish Watson would be found, in a stroke of serendipity, by the Incubator first.

James Moriarty had been located through no accident of fate; rather, it was for the crime of Carl Powers that the Puella Magi had found his line amongst the tangle of fate lines. It was only a matter of reweaving fates to insert herself, the Puella Magi having killed off Sabrina Moran to take her place in this world's fate.

So it was that 'Sabrina Moran' came across James Moriarty torturing a little hare, and did nothing but comment "That's not how you field-dress a deer."

James Moriarty, still young but not innocent in all the ways that matter, had blinked as 'Sabrina' took the knife from him.

"You slice it from here-" The squealing rabbit was neatly disembowelled, its internal organs ripped out, and the bunny dead when she snapped its neck with her bare hands. "-to here, and then you gut everything out and put ice. That's how you field-dress."

"Oh," James Moriarty had breathed, as 'Sabrina' easily inserted 'herself' into the rest of his life.

As the tartan hat bobbed, it sent the grating giggles to higher pitch, and Ebay would have shivered if the Incubator system wasn't fully aware of how the Puella Magi detested James Moriarty and all he stood for. How even his intellect wasn't enough to compensate for the powers of the Puella Magi he did not know, had never known, just as _his friend with supernatural powers who killed monsters in defence of humanity_.

Lightning struck, and threads of fate spun over the city, trapping it in an unseen net of destiny. A Witch's Labyrinth, or similar enough in design, a maze designed to lure its prey into a labyrinth without doors, without escape. It enveloped London, with the storm that now also covered a Puella Magi fighting for her life amongst a hail of bullets, a consulting detective rushing towards the black tramways, and a quartet of Magi arguing amongst each other.

"If you will not help us, then do nothinder us." With that parting shot, Homura turned to leave.

John was about to follow, but then he faced Mycroft again. "Mickey... you know that you aren't alone, right?"

"I know the sentiment," Mycroft stoically answered. "I also know your loyalty. I just wish that it would succeed against the enemy at hand."

John nodded, turning around. Puer and Puella Magi left to search for another, as Anthea worriedly considered Mycroft.

"Is it... wise?" she asked. Overhead, the overcast sky rumbled, a promise of rain in herald. "That the older brother should wholly hide the truth? It drove him mad in the end."

"Caring is not an advantage," Mycroft grimly answered, considering as the lightning shot off in several different directions at once, a flash of red like a spider web spiralling through the heavens to surround London. "It is too late for me." He then looked to Anthea. "Many thanks for your help over the years."

"Many thanks for yours, too," Anthea nodded, shrouding herself in opalescent light before the curtain of red thread descended over them.

As sure as London would wake to find itself trapped in a tormented dream, the Incubator's glassy eyes never wavered as the Puella Magi with the cloak and the red tartan accepted a champagne flute from the laughing mastermind, the smile of the mad concealing various intentions; from Ebay, from Moriarty, from everything and everyone.

Even a pair of wings would be visibly overhead, and it would not do for Homura to be spotted. This meant that John and Homura had to take another route, circling on the city skyline as they leapt from roof to roof. Miasma shrouded the city, most of it concentrated on the Thames like some nocturnal Lethe that demons prowled, unseen by most.

"They keep gathering there," John shrugged as they rushed alongside the horde.

"I see." Homura whispered.

They ran, along roofs, streets, fire escapes, and wires. John was honestly stockier and less fleet of foot, prompting him to rush to keep up on some points, until finally he spotted the gold _cheongsam_ along the black tramway.

Gunfire resounded as they approached, and John veered aside as one echoed a tad too close for comfort. Homura's shield clicked, and time itself stopped as she landed in front of the surprised Asian Puella Magi.

"Homura, Soo-Lin Yao, or Lin," John introduced. "Lin, Homura Akemi. I knew her in Afghanistan."

"Have you detected anything strange within London?" Homura enquired, latching onto Lin's hand as she spoke.

"W- What's going on?" the other Puella Magi defended. "Why are you holding onto me?"

"This is my power," Homura did not elaborate. "We must keep contact if you do not wish to be caught in the magic. Anything. Strange."

"The only strange thing is you!" Lin bristled. "Why?"

"Someone's been going around killing Puella Magi," John answered. "I- A friend of mine was killed. Before she died, she called Homura in for help. Before that, what's going on?"

"My brother's inside," Lin related, worried. "I'm going to rescue him from the Black Lotus."

"The what?" John blinked. "Hang on, the Chinese circus- the gang of international antique smugglers?"

"How did you know?" Lin stared at him.

"Flatmate's investigating," John explained.

"Liang is under the control of General Shan," Lin wrung her hand. "I need to rescue him."

"He is human," Homura immediately replied. “No matter how long you live with them, no matter how long you know them, you aren’t them.”

"He's my brother!" Lin replied. "I have to!"

"No, you don't," Homura coldly replied. "Family bonds don't last. Not with Puella Magi."

"I ran away that time," Lin shook her head. "I- I can't. They're shooting at some guy inside. Liang-"

The trio of Magi walked in, hands linked. John gaped at the surrounding props, the fact that they were clearly about to drive out on a two-seater apparently by the shell of an overturned car. A woman stood in Peking opera attire, yelling at a tall Chinese man that John would be willing to bet was the 'Chinese bird spider' acrobat at the artsy circus that Sherlock had gatecrashed. Which reminded him, he needed to get back to Sarah on that future date-

Homura's shield stopped clicking. Time began to meander on its way, and the three of them ducked behind one of the props as the gunfire resumed.

"Dead City guy and dead journalist," John listed. "You knew."

Lin's expression was all the confirmation he needed. That was right before it became insufficient evidence, because that was when John heard the most heart-stopping voice he had ever held the presence of mind to remember.

"That's a semi-automatic," Sherlock's voice rang through the tunnel. "If you fire it, the bullet will travel at over a thousand metres per second."

John swore under his breath. Why tonight? Why now?

"...curvature of these walls are nearly four metres. If you miss, the bullet will ricochet. Could hit anyone. Might even bounce off the tunnel and hit you."

John pulled his own .455 Webley, immediately firing a shot. True to form, the conjured bullet hit the walls and reflected in a spark of orange, and the woman flinched right as her own henchman ran to take the bullet, pushing her in the way of the giant bow-arrow contraption that was armed.

Lin gave a wordless cry, but John had already signalled to Homura. The Puella Magi activated her shield immediately, and the three of them stole into the night once more.

* * *

A bullet came out of thin air and killed the General Shan.

Well, there were a few more events involved in that chains of events from cause to effect, but Sherlock was more occupied with Shan's dying words. _Moriarty._

That, and the mysterious shooter who had saved his life. He stooped down, examining the entrance wound on the shooter's shoulder hat had nicked the carotid artery. .455 Webley again.

"Someone has a fondness for old weaponry," Sherlock deduced, making a quick search for the shooter but finding no one. Footprints were unnoticeable amongst the loose stones that covered the rails, and there was no one else living save for the incapacitated henchman that Sherlock had knocked out at the gate and the consulting detective himself.

The silence was tense and stretched, and idly Sherlock thought about John, who should have been here instead of with whatever insipid female he had managed to attract. Instead of-

Sherlock shook his head physically, willing the thoughts away before examining the confusing evidence at hand, before incompetent crime scene technicians broke in and ruined the evidence. The hideout was already a mess − someone had been attacking the base before he came. The guns on-scene and in Shan's hand would account for the firing, but the lack of firing pins on the other end indicated that the interloper was barely armed, let alone capable of taking on firing weapons. Here and there Sherlock found a gouge in the rock, like someone had put their foot through it − _Incredible force_ − but the thought was impossible. _No, not impossible, merely improbable −_ but no rational person would take a hammer to attack men armed with semi-automatics.

So far, evidence stated that one party, presumably armed with a hammer, was taking on armed men. They would have to wait for the testimony of the knocked-out guard, but then evidence said so, as far as he could see. Then, when he arrived, apparently a second, armed party had taken a shot towards Shan, and the guard pushed her out of the way, though she died from the group's own circus contraption. Still, a kill shot via reflected bullet-

"Takes risks," Sherlock mumbled. "Nerves of steel, strong moral principle, presuming that he was the same shooter that stopped Jeff Hope outside Baker Street. Where did he go?"

Sherlock looked around a bit more, waiting for Dimmock's men to arrive, and in that time he imagined John telling: _That's amazing._

That even as red streaked the skies that Sherlock did not see, that made the boredom worth it.

 


	8. VII: Aria

The web tightened as Sherlock Holmes approached Heathrow International Airport.

It tightened further as his cloak swished and he exited through the gate.

It closed down as the Belstaff coat left, and then, the tall figure strode out and waved down a cab.

The curtain circles the city.

"221B Baker Street."

* * *

"Bored, bored, bored-" Sherlock stopped moaning, staring up at the ceiling. There was an incredible sense of déjà vu that was going through his mind.

Then again, all of his moods felt like that. So assured, Sherlock turned to Mycroft. "I'd like to see you try."

Mycroft was just leaving when the call came. "Sherlock Holmes... of course... how can I refuse?"

Sherlock hustled out, grabbing his coat and scarf, and was about to step out of 221B Baker Street when a thought occurred to him. _I'd be lost without my blogger-_

Spirals dotted the London skyline as Sherlock walked past the blank-faced officials and towards Lestrade's office. A strongbox awaited him at NSY, followed with a note on Bohemian stationary addressed to him, and when he cut it open- "A pink phone."

"What, like the Study in Pink?"

"Well, obviously it's not the same phone, but it's supposed to look like-" Sherlock stopped. "Study in Pink?"

"You remember, the cabbie serial killings," Lestrade reaffirmed. "Jeff Hope, died about two months back? Pink woman, pink phone, rather alarming shade of pink?"

"Pink... of course," Sherlock answered, nonplussed as he listened to the Greenwich pips and a photograph from the alarmingly pink phone. A warning, that another explosion was going to happen. The trail led him back, down to 221C where a tearful woman gave him a message with an old pair of shoes.

The shoes made their way to St Barts'.

_Owner loved these, scrubbed them clean, whitened them when they got discoloured, changed the laces three- no, four times. Even so, there are traces of his flaky skin where his fingers have come into contact with them, so he suffered from eczema. The shoes are well-worn, more so on the inner side, which means the owner had weak arches. British-made, twenty years old. Limited edition, two blue stripes, 1989. There's still mud on them, they look new − someone's kept them that way. Quite a bit of mud caked on the soles, analysis shows it's from Sussex with London mud overlaying it due to pollen, London mud south of the Thames. So, the kid came down to London from Sussex twenty years ago. Something bad happened; he loved these shoes, wouldn't leave them filthy. A child with big feet gets..._

"Carl Powers," Sherlock realised, rushing out, before he stopped, confused. Molly had come by with her closeted gay boyfriend, immaterial to the case. The number under the dish was immaterial.

He looked around, as if expecting to have misplaced something, and then left, very reluctantly, back to Baker Street.

A phone beeped. _Any developments? − Mycroft Holmes._

"Must be a root canal," Sherlock mumbled. "Putting my best man onto-" he stopped. What best man? He was alone, and he always had been.

Shaking his head, he got back onto the case, ignoring the increasingly strident siren of beeps that threatened.

_FOUND: Pair of trainers belonging to Carl Powers (1978-1989). Botulinum toxin still present. Apply 221B Baker Street._

The curtain rises.

* * *

"I can't be the only person in the world who gets bored," Sherlock mumbled as the next case came in. Abandoned car, hired yesterday morning by a banker, Ian Monkford. Told his wife he was going away on a business trip and he never arrived.

A few moments with the wife and Sherlock could already find several contradictions, as well as the acceptance of Mrs Monkford regarding her husband's death. it led him to Janus Cars and the proprietor's tendency to lie. One of the cars flashed tartan, blue, yellow and green overlay.

A clue arrived as he was checking the blood left in the abandoned car. _The clue's in the name − Janus Cars._

Clever. Elegant. But exactly a pint of blood spread on the seat; first mistake that led to the unravelling of Janus Cars' very special service.

_Congratulations to Ian Monkford on his relocation to Columbia._

Sherlock ignored the beeps of Mycroft's messages.

* * *

"You're lucky that we watch too much telly," Mrs Hudson chatted when the next photograph came in.

Connie Prince, TV personality, hosted one of those inane makeover shows that shouldn't matter. Mrs Hudson did scold him when he asked for more information, saying: "I'm not your housekeeper, boy." Seeing as she was allowing him to live with a severely reduced rate in Central London, he supposed that he could stand to tolerate.

Now, though, a new problem had presented itself. "We?"

"Why, me and..." Mrs Hudson faltered. "Oh, who was he? One of Mrs Turner's married ones, I suppose."

"He?" Sherlock blinked. "What was his name?"

_Raoul de Santos, the houseboy, Botox._

* * *

Aside from the Golem, the Hickman Gallery case was so straightforward that it would take a romantic to fully discern it. Van Buren supernova, occurred only in 1858, a marker of a far later time that could not have appeared in the sixteen-forties. The stars were the marker here, the evidence that did not lie whether they lay in the skies, melted by light pollution or flat in a false painting that still glimmered brilliantly in a mark of creative art.

Locard's exchange principle − Every contact leaves a trace.

The stars spiralled in the background of the false Vermeer as Sherlock returned to Baker Street, where Mycroft awaited.

"Sherlock," Mycroft remonstrated. "I have been pressing you to take this case. I insist, you cease this rebellion-"

"What is that thing?"

"What thing?" Mycroft snapped.

"That thing I forgot."

"If you forgot something, then obviously there isn't any value in it."

That's wrong, Sherlock already knew that. Mycroft would insist that all knowledge had value, because knowledge was more than the sum of its parts, the possibilities... but now there was one secret that was locked away somewhere.

Why was Locard's exchange principle important? Sherlock couldn't remember for the life of him.

* * *

Obviously, Andrew West was killed somewhere else and then dumped onto the train. The tracks led to the house of West's prospective brother-in-law, Joe Harrison, who handed over the USB drive in a fit of guilty conscience.

_FOUND: The Bruce-Partington plans. Please collect. The Pool. Midnight._

Tonight. Tonight it ends.

* * *

That Moriarty would turn out to be Molly's pseudo-boyfriend was... unexpected.

"Is that a British Army L9A1 in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?" Moriarty mocked.

"Both," Sherlock levelled the gun at him.

"Jim Moriarty. Hi~!" the criminal mastermind sing-songed. "Jim? Jim from the hospital? Did I really make such a fleeting impression? But then, I suppose, that was rather the point."

Sniper dots spun around, sometimes aiming for Sherlock, sometimes wandering harmlessly about the surprisingly inky black pool. The pool was definitely overdue for a cleaning; Sherlock was surprised that no one had reported on it yet.

"I don't like getting my hands dirty," Moriarty continued. "Too much mess. I've given you a glimpse, Sherlock, just a teensy glimpse of what I've got going on out there in the big bad world. I'm a specialist, you see."

"Dear Jim, please will you fix it for me to get rid of my lover's nasty sister?" Sherlock recited.

"Just so."

"A consulting criminal," and here Sherlock smiled. "Brilliant."

"Isn't it?" Moriarty beamed. "No one ever gets to me. And no one ever will."

Sherlock cocked the surprisingly familiar gun. "I did."

"You've come the closest," Moriarty specified. "Now you're in my way."

"Thank you."

"Didn't mean it as a compliment."

"You did."

"Yeah, okay, I did," Moriarty shrugged. "But the flirting's over, Sherlock. Daddy's had enough now~"

"You cut loose all those people, all those little problems, even thirty million quid just for this game," Sherlock murmured. "You made all of this a warning to me."

"Just so," Moriarty gave a little theatrical bow. "Although, I have loved this, playing Jim from IT, playing gay... did you like the little touch with the underwear?"

He hadn't noticed. It had all been window-dressing. "People have died."

"That's what people DO!" Moriarty yelled at the end. "You're all alone, Sherlock. And, unlike you... at least, I have the resources, the ambition, to pull off what you will never do. Little Sherlock who sees too much and who'd probably outlive God himself to get the last word."

"I'm bored," Sherlock echoed hollowly.

"You've just come off a bender. Obviously you are."

"No, you don't understand," Sherlock shook his head, lowering the gun. "I am bored of your games, your little puzzles. They are elegant, but they lack something. This world lacks something."

The man in the Westwood suit looked mortally offended. "People don't underestimate me."

"It doesn't matter, does it?" Sherlock reflected. "Even if I finish you off, another will take your place. These puzzles... staying alive, through all of it..."

"They'll know you committed suicide," Moriarty shook his head.

"But one mystery eludes me still," Sherlock raised the gun, pointing it to his temple. "What I forgot. How did I forget, how did everyone forget? What did I forget?"

"I... sorry?" Moriarty looked at him.

"You're not important," Sherlock flatly stated. "You are brilliant, but genius requires an audience to amaze, to stun. You are just that spider who weaves webs in the corner and everyone brushes your creations aside like dust."

"I am _valued_ ," Moriarty snarled.

"By other spiders," Sherlock distantly answered, before he aimed again. "I prefer bees, myself."

"If you shoot me... then you get to cherish the look on my face," Moriarty snarled, all traces of civilisation or veneer of humanity gone to replace an animalistic beast.

"I will shake your hand in hell," Sherlock distantly replied as he pulled the trigger. "If this is a dream... let me wake."

Locard's exchange principle.

The perpetrator of a crime brings something, and leaves something, wherever he steps, whatever he touches, whatever he leaves; even unconsciously, evidence will serve as a silent witness against him. All of these and more, bear mute witness against him. This is evidence that does not forget. It is not confused by the excitement of the moment. It is not absent because human witnesses are. It is factual evidence. Physical evidence cannot be wrong, it cannot perjure itself, it cannot be wholly absent. Only human failure to find it, study and understand it, can diminish its value.

The fault was not with anyone else, not with the physical, mental, the déjà vu, the feelings, Study in Pink, Connie Prince, giving these games, this mission, the Work, a meaning. The reason lay with Sherlock.

With his left hand to secure his right, Sherlock pulled the trigger.

He gasped, water flooding his lungs. He spluttered, surfacing and sopping wet, right as a rocket flew over his head and imploded with a concussive wave that sent ripples over the water surface.

A top hat circling his brow, a rather shorter Mycroft made a disgruntled sound as he tugged Sherlock out of the water. "If I'd known..."

"First time admitting that you don't know everything, Mycroft." Opalescent lace rustled as dark-haired Anthea spun, the guise of Irene Adler melting away once more. She held a cinquedea in both hands, standing on one side of the anti-ship missile that, for some reason, had been thrown into the pool by the purple-haired girl that had kicked Sherlock away from the bullet he would have thrown.

"You-" Landing on her feet, Homura pistol-whipped the consulting detective. "Are you sensible again?"

"Yes," Sherlock quickly answered. "But I'm rapidly doubting if I'm sane enough to say so. Mycroft, you're... young again."

"I've never aged," Mycroft nodded, his top hat bobbing, a violet jewel set into the centre of its band. He wore a double-breasted waistcoat, which seemed at odds with his youthful features but perfectly matched his cane. "As for how... it's by magic."

"Magic," Sherlock incredulously echoed.

"Ms Akemi, it looks like joining forces has become imperative," Mycroft nodded towards her. "Especially since you have provided... proof of what happened to Soo-Lin Yao, then there is no other alternative."

"What other alternative?" Sherlock exclaimed as he stared down towards the purple-uniformed Magi holding a Beretta.

"To killing yourself," Homura answered. "Of course."

"This is insane," Sherlock repeated.

"Of course it is," Homura agreed, turning, her hair flying towards one side as, from where Jim Moriarty had been standing, a horde of ecru-draped monsters burst forth, empty lips gaping and claws cracking through the black solidified waters like glass, the entire swimming complex changing into the interior of a dark parody of a circus. "For a consulting detective, you're not doing much at the moment. Follow us. Adler, you will secure that horde of wraiths."

"Got it," Irene winked at Sherlock before turning away.

"Why?" Sherlock retorted, unused to following orders.

"We've got to save that person you forgot," Homura answered. "The one almost everyone forgot, until I tried to leave London. No one can exit or enter the Labyrinth until the Witch is destroyed?"

"The Witch?" Sherlock echoed, unwillingly following her. "You're a witch?"

"Magical girl," Homura confirmed. "And you are Sherlock Holmes, who used to be a candidate to be a Puer Magi, until Mycroft Holmes wished that you remained ignorant to magic. Now, you will help me to save your friend."

"What friend?" Sherlock yelled. "I don't have friends-" He cut off. "I've just... got the one." His eyes widened.

"Yes," Homura confirmed. "The friend you forgot. The one whose name was erased, and his thread of fate torn, but the traces of his existence remained, did it not? With you."

"How could I have forgotten..." Sherlock shook his head. "How could I forget John?"

* * *

"Geek Interpreter, what's that?" Sherlock peered over John's shoulder as John slowly hunted and pecked at the laptop keyboard. Skulls spun on its base and in

"That's the title," John explained.

"What does it need a title for?" Sherlock sounded honestly perplexed.

"People like that sort of thing."

"Do people actually read your blog?"

"Where do you think our clients come from?"

"I have a website."

"In which you enumerate 240 different types of tobacco ash," John shot back. "Nobody's reading your website."

"I suppose then boring people like sensationalism," Sherlock demurred.

"Right, then," John clicked his tongue.

"Don't mention the unsolved ones!" Sherlock heckled a bit later, as John began to type up the case of the Dusseldorf case.

"People want to know you're human," John sighed.

"Why?"

"Because they're interested."

"No, they're not." Sherlock paused. "Why are they?"

John just smirked, looking at the hit counter. "Look at that. One thousand eight hundred and ninety-five."

Sherlock's look seemed to have frozen onto his face. "Sorry?"

"I reset that counter last night," John clarified. "This blog has had nearly two thousand hits in the last eight hours. This is your living, Sherlock, not two hundred and forty different types of tobacco ash."

"Two hundred and forty-three," Sherlock mutinously muttered.

A while later, John discovered the acid-soaked remains of one jumper, and another with a conspicuous hollow where Sherlock had used it as a pillow.

With a huff as John came to round on him, Sherlock shoves the pile of paperwork off the table in the sitting room they’ve come to use as a desk. It landed on the floor with a wholly unsatisfying thump. He ran his hands irritably through his hair, before whipping his head around to glare at John.

“Stop looming. It’s distracting.”

“Sherlock, you’ve been poring over those papers for over a week now," John tiredly spoke. "When was the last time you ate?”

Sherlock shakes his head. “Irrelevant.”

He then looked at John. "John, I need some. Get me some."

"No." Came the flat refusal.

"Get me some-"

"No," John cut in. "Cold turkey we agreed, no matter what."

Crossing into the kitchen, John sighs and spoke over his shoulder. “You have to eat something,  Sherlock. You can’t live on coffee for this long. Anyway, you've paid everyone off, remember? No one within a two-mile radius will sell you any.”

“Try me.” Sherlock snaps irritably. "What a stupid idea, whose idea was that?"

Silently, John places a plate of toast at Sherlock’s elbow.

Sherlock yielded. John’s expression is enough to weaken Sherlock’s resolve in its exasperation, amusement and pure stubbornness. “Alright, maybe just a bite.”

That was before Mrs Hudson yelled: "Boys! It's another one!"

"You wearing any pants?" was John's first words on seeing the great consulting detective draped in a bedsheeet. Because _of course_ Sherlock would choose to wear just the bed-sheet to Buckingham Palace.

"No..."

"Okay."

The answer came a touch too chipper, for the boys of Baker Street met eyes for a brief moment before they broke out in giggles and laughter.

"What are we doing here?" John gasped, as by the side the gilt flowers of the ornately decorated fireplace bloomed, shedding petals all over the Axminster. "Seriously, what? I am seriously fighting an impulse to steal an ashtray. Seriously, Sherlock, what?"

"I don't know," came the answering rumble.

"Here to  see the Queen?" John slyly implied as Mycroft walked in, drawing a fresh round of giggles as Sherlock deadpanned "Apparently, yes."

"A curious thing," Mycroft spoke as he faced the two of them. "Just happened."

"That you left your regular schedule does, indeed, explain that something has happened," Sherlock snarked back. The smile faded, though, as behind Mycroft approached a dark-haired girl in a purple uniform.

"You have to wake up now, John," she spoke.

"Who are you?" John blinked. "What's going on? I don't understand."

"Soo-Lin Yao turned into the Witch, Black Lotus," Homura replied as she chambered several rounds with quick efficiency. "We dispatched of her, but not without cost. I have just stopped a man from committing suicide due to the residual memory doubt, and now I shall stop you from the dream that has been imposed upon you."

"Witches?" Sherlock snickered. "Who are you?"

"I am a Puella Magi, Homura Akemi," Homura answered as she aimed and fired.

John dived, but then things froze and Sherlock screamed, blood dribbling down the sheet he wore. "John!"

"Sherlock!" John dived, but then Mycroft bodily held him back, and since when did Mycroft bear a top hat −

The bed-sheet, Sherlock, crimson blood and all, folded in like some bizarre bouquet, Sherlock's scream cut off as Homura suddenly conjured a rocket launcher and triggered it.

Windows blew in, glass tinkling as the bed-sheet changed from white to black, and then from behind Mycroft, Sherlock in his great-coat billowing like some bat out of hell let loose an entire cartridge into the black-draped Sherlock facing him.


	9. VIII: Diva

"Magic exists," Sherlock mouthed.

Around them, gears rotated, much like the inside of a clockwork watch blown up to gears as tall as a man and perhaps larger. Strings of red curled around the gears, flowing and stopping to bind onto a frame as shuttles danced between the strings, binding them into cloth that stretched over the face of the city of London and its faceless denizens. He stood on one of these shuttles that flew with a violet glow, headed for Buckingham Palace.

As they passed, several of the faceless things tried to grab at him, chased away with a bullet or a fist or merely dashing along on their merry way.

"You're taking this quite well," Homura dropped an emptied magazine, reloading her Beretta.

"You mean that my brother mysteriously became younger and that he grew up to kill supernatural beings in defence of humanity?" Sherlock coldly answered. "Or that the very same mystery is destroying the City of Westminster?"

"Both," the Beretta clicked in her hand. "Or that John Watson, until nearly ten minutes ago, did not exist within your sphere. Or that she had cut the threads of fate."

"I don't understand," Sherlock harshly replied.

"The shuttles weave the tapestry of fates," Homura simply answered. "The twining of threads if a metaphor for the meeting of people. It was by following the threads that she had located us all, and by cutting the threads that Sherlock Holmes never existed in the real world. Well, not Sherlock Holmes, per se, but _you_."

"Oh, please," Sherlock snapped. "Quit boring me with the silly metaphor and _magic_."

"You're standing on a giant weaving shuttle flying towards Buckingham Palace at my behest," Homura replied. "We are here."

The shuttle landed outside of the Palace, and the pair easily running through the gates were barely stopped by the security guards before they spilled past double doors,  staircases and sumptuously decorated rooms where they entered a sitting room. Gold and red dominated this room, and yet Sherlock was more concerned with his own form draped over John Watson in nothing but a bedsheet. They were met by Mycroft, who looked dapper still though slightly the worse for wear.

"That's me-" Sherlock dived forth, presumably to intervene, but then Homura held him back. "Why? John needs-"

"Try not to make any sudden moves," Homura snarled. "John Hamish Watson is currently within her clutches. His life hangs in the balance, depending on whether or not Mycroft Holmes shall be able to subdue the witch."

"Witch?" Sherlock wanted to scoff, but he was talking to a magical girl, having rode a giant flying shuttle to the Queen's residence. "Fine."

"I will intervene," Mycroft sadly related, nodding to the both of them. "Stay put, brother."

He then walked into the room.

"Apparently, yes," the imposter on the couch next to John said, bringing a fresh round of giggles between John and the one carrying his face, that caused an unpleasant swell of something in Sherlock's reason.

"A curious thing," Mycroft spoke as he faced the two of them. "Just happened."

"That you left your regular schedule does, indeed, explain that something has happened," the fake Sherlock snarked back.

Homura stepped forward, Sherlock still concealed from sight by her small form. The smile faded.

"You have to wake up now, John," she spoke.

"Who are you?" John blinked. "What's going on? I don't understand."

"Soo-Lin Yao turned into the Witch, Black Lotus," Homura replied as she chambered several rounds with quick efficiency into another handgun that seemed to have appeared from thin air. "We dispatched of her, but not without cost. I have just stopped a man from committing suicide due to the residual memory doubt, and now I shall stop you from the dream that has been imposed upon you."

"Witches?" Sherlock in the bedsheet, no, not Sherlock snickered. "Who are you?"

"I am a Puella Magi, Homura Akemi," Homura answered as she aimed and fired.

John dived, but then things froze and the imposter screamed. "John!"

"Sherlock!" John was about to approach the false face, the one deception Sherlock could not forgive, that somehow this man was stealing his life, his John − since when did Mycroft bear a top hat −

Homura suddenly conjured a rocket launcher and triggered it. Windows blew in, glass tinkling as the bed-sheet changed from white to black, and then Sherlock rushed in, drawing John's rather illegal Sig Sauer to fire into the black drapes.

"John!" he screamed, trying to reach the blond, but the soldier held back, barely panicked between a living and a dead Sherlock.

"Who are you?!" John bellowed. "Oh, Sherlock- Sherlock! Mycroft, call an ambulance, hurry!"

"Good," Mycroft snarled, producing a derringer two-shot to aim towards the fallen, black-swathed body.

"Sherlock, Sherlock!" John leaned over the corpse. "I could... I could..."

A pale arm draped over John's neck, fingers digging into the nape. A head of dark curls rose slightly. "It's alright," the other Sherlock whispered. "John, you don't have to question  it. This is who you are."

"W- What?" John sounded confused, unable to struggle from that iron embrace.

"Do you think this world is precious?" the other Sherlock, verdigris eyes and still draped in that black bedsheet, whispered, his eyes wide as he faced Sherlock. "Do you think we could be happy in a world like this?"

"I think... I think we are happy," John answered. "We solve crimes, I blog about it, you forget your trousers. I wouldn't hold out too much hope. But the others-"

"They do not matter," the hold tightened, the voice harsher, with an almost desperate quality. "None of them matter. Just the two of us, against the rest of the world. I want you to be in a world where you could be happy."

"O- Of course," John's reply was monotonous, almost in a trance.

"Let go," Sherlock snapped.

"Why?" the other answered. "You do not exist. I am holding John."

"I am the one who will hold John."

"No, you won't," the other gave a crisp retort. "In the entire twining of your association past fifty years, you will never do that. You will never act on that feeling. We Holmeses are idiots like that."

Sherlock's brow furrowed.

"Mycroft, you traitor," the other then continued, almost whimsically.

"The agreement was to spare my brother," Mycroft spat. "Not drive him to suicide!"

"John, I don't want to be here," the other rested. "Let's go home."

"You are not stepping into my home," Sherlock snarled. "Give me my life back."

"So that you will spend it away?" the other sounded almost smug. "No one will ever understand this feeling of mine... these feelings all for John... all for Watson. Let's go, John."

"What? Huh?" John snapped out. "Oh, you lazy sod, am I really going to have to carry you out of Buckingham Palace in the nude? Really?"

"Stop-" Homura caught herself short as the giant couch nearly crashed into her.

"No!" Sherlock rugby-tackled John. Since John was shorter, his centre of gravity was made lower, which would have been hard if Sherlock had not specifically aimed for the feet and if the ex-soldier was not still somewhat in a trance. All three collided with the carpet in a fine mess of tangled limbs and clothes. The mess of black blanket crashed with a curse, Sherlock grabbing onto a doctoral hand and then running with John behind right out of the Queen's residence.

* * *

"What are you-" John spluttered, but keeping up with barely a hint.

"John, please," Sherlock pleaded.

Around them, a shrill whistle echoed, and an actual Custodian helmet in the midst. Complete with truncheons. Since rapid amassing of constables was not part of the Yard's repertoire, Sherlock surmised that they were probably minions, either of Moriarty or the other  _wrong very wrong_  Sherlock. Cabs began screeching, stopping in the streets with abrupt crashes with some animal instinct that no form of internal combustion should possess. People, faceless strangers to a one, were swarming around the bobbies, beginning to take on the physical characteristics of the Met bobbies that charged after the running pair.

"Who are you?" John yelled. "I've never met you!"

"No, you must have," Sherlock pleaded. "We've lived in the same flat for three months!"

"The only one I've been living with for the past three months is my flatmate!" John bellowed. "Sherlock Holmes, world's only consulting prat who's also a lazy sod! Look, I know a guy, Lestrade-"

"Lestrade is useless!" Sherlock bellowed. The skies over London was cracking, with the howls of hounds and for some odd reason, mustard smoke that drifted with the bobbies still running after them. "I am Sherlock!"

"You're not!" John retorted. "You look like him, but you are- I don't even know your name!"

"You're an army doctor and you've been invalidated home from Afghanistan," Sherlock gave the whole sentence in a rat-tat-tat of deductive bullets. "Your therapist thinks your limp's psychosomatic. Your sister Harriet died in a drunk-driving accident with her wife, Clara, and the death duties caused you to require assistance."

"Harry's a drunk," John stiffly replied. "And if you're implying anything horrible to threaten my sister-"

"Can we not have your moral hang-ups now?!" Sherlock shook the hand that refused to let go of John. "Please, believe me. The other- the other me, he's been hypnotising you through something, he's deluding you! He's taken you into this impossible world where he's dangling you to his impossible marionette strings-"

"What are you talking about?" John snapped. "Sherlock cares. He told me."

"I lie, John," Sherlock softly replied. "I lie... because it's easier."

The whistles were getting louder, an echo of some dark, twisted circus procession of police and thieves, with brightly coloured cabs with faceless murder victims and murderers bearing bloodstained weapons running on the ground. There was nothing to hold on to that your mind could fully comprehend, and the laws of physics seemed truly non-existent even as the mustard smog continued to swamp Westminster and the modern streetlights began winking in the gloom with the gutters of candlelight . They did not  _fit_ , and Sherlock's eyes kept trying to pretend they didn’t see any of it.

"You lie."

The _other_ was there. Belstaff coat, some odd floppy hat in a red tartan, and smiling at Sherlock, hands in his pockets. "Yes, it's easy to lie. To lie that we do not care. But no, I do care. John, let go, please."

"'Course, Sherlock," the blond made to let go, but Sherlock held firm.

"Wake up, John," Sherlock pleaded. "He stole you when I left for Belarus. That was a mistake. A stupid one."

"John, come," the other pressed, almost frowning as he considered the veritable skies of red threads. "Please."

"I've never said please," Sherlock pressed. "John! You've said it before, I am everything that you think I am! How else would I know you so well?"

Blue eyes met verdigris. "I've never met you."

Sherlock's eyes narrowed.

"No!" the other Sherlock made to move forward, but was intercepted by a hail of bullets, followed by Mycroft nimbly dancing the gavotte on the sea of Custodian helmets, swinging his umbrella, a bejewelled top hat perched nimbly on his head whacking him with the umbrella.

"That was for trying to kill Sherlock," Mycroft spoke, almost primly.

The other began laughing.

"Dr Watson," Sherlock spoke. "Mr Sherlock Holmes."

The laughter quieted down, leaving the world in paralysed, stunning silence. Time held its breath, stopping its wheels mid-turn. The skies of red, the tapestry of fates forcibly ended and intertwined and bent to the will by a single magical girl with time, will and a lot of magic rippled, shredded as worlds of paradoxes caused it to shudder, falling one after another. Buildings caught on fire with the echoes of London's tragedies, as the troupe laughed and then-

Red thread shot from all directions, spinning and weaving until a net was formed. A web, one that expanded across, from where the other Sherlock had been standing. Mandibles clicked as the form arose, compound eyes regarding the Baker Street Boys with their many facets as the black red-eyed spider formed from its contents.

Around their ears, as reality came crashing in on itself, destroyed and unsupported by a broken logic, John took a deep breath, and frowned. "What the... hell is going on? What is-"

John turned around, and his words died as he saw the mess of Westminster, the reality-warp and, amongst many, Mycroft switching to the Irish jig with two derringers. "Mycroft!"

"John," Sherlock breathed. "What is going on?"

"We shall end this,” Homura declared.

"'Course, but..." John frowned. "What happened?"

"Puella Magi..." Homura considered. "No. We may consider this... a Witch."

"A Witch?"

"The illusion targets you, and lures you into their confines," Homura confessed. "Into a labyrinth without exits. Without a doubt, the city has been enveloped into a Witch's Labyrinth. It should be impossible... impossible. The Law of Cycles should have taken the Puella Magi..."

"Well, then this is a right mess," Mycroft commented, watching overhead at the flying shuttles and the red-cloth skies. "Sherlock, we'd best get out of here."

"I don't understand," Sherlock mumbled.

_Of course not._

Tail swishing from side to side, two feline-looking creatures with two sets of ears, one with the edges of its ears in red dots on pink, the other with white dots on blue. Neither of them looked as alive as a true feline, more of a creepy plush toy than anything else.

"Kyubey," Homura murmured. "So... you must be Ebay. Incubator."

_I have awaited this moment for a long time,_ Ebay communicated.

"Telepathy?" Sherlock spoke up.

_Another Holmes._ Ebay scoffed.

_Sherlock Holmes,_ Kyubey cocked its head. _A perfect candidate to become a Puer Magi. I can see why you found him, Incubator._

_It was the Holmes that found him first, following the common fate thread to him, and thus to John Hamish Watson,_ Ebay demurred. _You flatter me, other Incubator. It is our race that is culpable, that created this tragedy._

"Why?" Sherlock knelt down to face the Incubator.

"The bobbies are gaining," John tersely replied. "Conversation later, let's get out!"

"Oh, that," Mycroft swung his umbrella, a curtain of violet light falling in a barrier around them. "Well, Adler and the horde of wraiths that used to be James Moriarty seems to be a comment, that we are trapped. There is no way out of the city of London at present, not without great cost. What is a Witch?"

"In the end, everything falls to the Incubators," Homura commented.

_In other worlds, Witches are monsters that live only to spread their curses upon humanity,_ Ebay related. _In exchange for a wish, any wish, we Incubators form contracts, mostly with girls in the second growth phase. The result of the contract is the proof of a Puella Magi._

"How is this relevant?" Mycroft frowned. "We already know."

_When a Magi loses all hope, falling to despair, the Soul Gem becomes corrupted,_ Ebay related. _It breaks, and the Puella Magi transforms into a Witch. For every person saved, the Witch spends the rest of her life cursing another._

_The end result was similar to why the Magi in this world hunt wraiths; to gather energy to stave off the heat death of the universe,_ Kyubey considered. _However, the energy released by a single Magi must be much more than most wraiths._

"We turn... into the very monsters we fight," John swallowed.

_There lay the heart of the tragedy,_ Ebay turned its head up, towards the giant spider that lay upon its mid-air web that spanned London. _The clue is in the names. The name of that Puella Magi, who have isolated this world from its Law of Cycles, who has cut the thread of fate, to insert herself seamlessly into your place into this world... the one who started all of this._

* * *

The posture of John Watson was a wonderful thing; ramrod straight even as he stood by the pool. Remnants of debris littered everywhere, even the water itself had not been spared. Irene had not survived.

A tartan hat of green, blue and red overlay appeared first, followed by a black cloak, the jingle of a belt, and black shoes with red heels.

Sherlock smirked. "John."

John licked his lips. He was still in his jumper, jeans and boots, and still looked outwardly ordinary. Compared to where the shadows playing over the pool, he looked ridiculously normal. "Ebay told me everything."

Sherlock's generous lips turned down. "Did it now?"

"You're not from this world," John stated. "None of you are, neither Ebay, nor you. You're a Puella Magi from another world, who wished to find a world to be happy in. That wish gave you the power to control the lines of fate, which you used to track down alternate versions of the one who truly mattered to you."

"You are not John Watson," Sherlock answered.

John smiled, the light shifting to reveal the real Sherlock. "Magic is useful, is it not?"

"As a means to an end," the other agreed.

"What is the point?" Sherlock sounded confused.

"Everything and nothing."

"That does not make sense."

"Because you do not love John as he should."

At this, Sherlock frowned. "I doubt that my hypothetical love for John is relevant. And it's Dr Watson."

"My existence, and yours, and many others, prove the existence of alternate worlds," the other replied. "My Watson remains scattered amongst the many worlds."

"Your Watson is dead," Sherlock scornfully replied.

"No," the other sighed. "Each individual only has one fate line. I have tracked the same fate line to one thousand, eight hundred and ninety-five Watsons so far. I have unearthed the fates of one thousand eight hundred and ninety-five of us. In all one thousand, eight hundred and ninety-five worlds, Holmes and Watson meet."

At this, the other smiled, almost cold and cruel. "You say that caring is not an advantage. I find it freeing. You see, I find myself accepting that I must kill another of myself in order to find my Watson."

Red thread shot out, but a gunshot echoed as the other staggered back, blinking in disbelief. The area around the right shoulder began to flake off, Belstaff coat and all, the skin melting like so much wax and the other screamed, revealing under the facade of Sherlock Holmes a feminine face with bowed lips and wide verdigris eyes that looked as mad as Sherlock, draped in a red lace dress under the black cloak.

“You're-” Sherlock Holmes stared as the magic had shattered. “You're _me_.”

"Shirley Holmes," the voice that answered was flat and dead. “I  _will_  be.”

Faster than should have been possible, Shirley lunged for Sherlock, her hands closing around his throat to buckle down with hideous strength.

“John. Joan." She babbled. "Watson. My Watson. You won't take him from me, I won't let you, I'm going to be happy with Watson, my Watson. I'll killed a thousand eight hundred and ninety-four of you, of myself, it can't end like this!”

A hammer thumbed down, a cylinder rotated. A gunshot went off. Glass shattered.

"Sherlock?" John had leapt down from his position on the roof, abandoning the conjured Jezail rifle to attend to a wheezing Sherlock.

"No..." red threads shot about once more, as Homura appeared at the scene.

She swiped her arm on front of her, and the missile-throwers fell as if from thin air, hitting the ground with loud  _thumps_ , surrounding her like an army. From there, only the sound and smell of explosions was all that was left.

The pounding of feet echoed in the empty pool as John led the consulting detective out, running towards one of the many buildings.

"You have to get to Heathrow," John babbled, the pounding of their feet echoing in the empty city. "I don't imagine that she could have taken the airport, but that's the symbolic limit."

"John," Sherlock swallowed as an army of moustachioed bobbies had lined up, gun akimbo. "We can't. There's too many."

John looked around, finally spotting a truck nearby. He swallowed. "Sherlock... don't be alarmed, alright?"

Sherlock blinked. "What about-"

Light enveloped John's form, before John, now in desert fatigues of greyish-white with a beret of the Watson tartan reappeared, grabbed Sherlock by the midriff, and ran as fast as his feet would carry him. They jumped, landing swiftly on top of a truck. Setting a stunned detective down, he spread a palm against the roof of the cabin, and a faint sheen covered the vehicle, making it roar as it turned the ignition on.

"Y- You're a Magi too?" Sherlock exclaimed.

John gave a grim nod. "Hold on tight."

It shot forward, making the Puer Magi fall to one knee to keep his balance. The wheels screeched in the pavement as it got started on a course on the nearest expressway, mowing through the army of policemen minions in the race to Heathrow International Airport.

Looming behind them, was the spectre of a spider, and manic laughter.


	10. IX: Crescendo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter next!

Panting, chest heaving and arms akimbo, Sherlock clung to the surface of a self-moving truck. Overhead, shuttles and their attached threads flew over the striped, red-threaded skies of not-London, truth and perspective rearranging within the server of the Mind Palace.

“John,” he rasped.

Said Puer Magi gave a grim smile. “I’m here.”

“How long?” Sherlock murmured. “Since...?”

John paused. “Since... twenty years ago, really. I made the contract with Ebay that day.”

“Contract?”

“Magi like Homura and I...” John paused, before pulling the shimmering grey-white amulet from around his neck. “We’re made through contracts with the Incubators. In exchange for a single wish of whatever we want, we must take up arms and fight against demons. This Soul Gem is the crystallisation of that.”

Sherlock reached out a hand, bathed in the wan grey light that bore more warmth than a summer’s day. Long violinist’s fingers nearly brushes it before the truck jostled, sending Sherlock teetering off of the edge.

“That-” Sherlock gasped. “What is it? That doesn’t explain your body.”

Grimly, John clung on with one arm, tucking it away. “Yeah, I was afraid you might say that. Erm... you see, normal humans can’t take much damage from magic without dying. So... the Incubators... they take our souls and put it in the Soul Gems. Take my word for it, it’s crazy.”

“Crazy does not cover this,” Sherlock waved towards the fascimile of London they were in, hurtling on a self-driving truck towards safe harbour. “This is beyond reason, John. Why couldn’t you tell me this? I could’ve joined you, I would be-”

“Sherlock!”

John seized the impossible detective by his shoulders as the truck hurtled some more past a horde of moustached faceless bobbies. All the constables began taking chase behind the chariot of detective and doctor, truncheons drawn and grimly gaining ground.

“Sherlock,” John whispered. “Sherlock... you were in Minsk, right?”

Sherlock nodded.

“Good, so you were in Heathrow...” John swallowed. “Get to Heathrow. You need to go back, now. It’s not safe for you, especially if that Puella Magi is after you. Homura, Mycroft... they need help. I’m going back to fight. And... Stay in one piece, alright?”

“You can’t be going back,” Sherlock whispered. “John, this is-”

“This is the war I signed up for,” John answered. “This is... like the Work, except I don’t enjoy it. But this is the fate of all Magi, to fight for their prayers.”

“They can handle it,” Sherlock pointed out. “That Magi, whoever she was, is clearly obsessed with you. Your presence is an anomaly; it would disrupt their progress-”

John shook his head, pulling up his pack. “Magi have no choice but to continue fighting. This is the price we pay for a miracle.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Sherlock whispered as chaos reigned and the cobblestones of London shook.

“It must,” John answered. “Because we met, and I was needed. I wish that you would never make the same mistake we all did.”

“You’re not going away,” Sherlock pressed as they reached the main highway, where a barricade of bobbies and murderers awaited them, weapons drawn. “John!”

“Stay safe.”

The truck crashed through the sea of bodies, the Puer Magi in desert tan flinging out his pack to grab one of many suspended rifles and aiming, shooting quickly, and at the same time he grabbed Sherlock and they left. The heat of the explosion nearly burnt his back as magic slowed their fall, hitting the ground, rolling and getting up in one swift motion.

A rumbling of tar echoed, rose in the air again as the tank appeared under her, concealed by magic up until now. John leapt, again with Sherlock held close, and the cannons fired with a volley of sound and pyrotechnics through the faceless men and women with the strength of an earthquake.

A monolith of technology and age, Heathrow loomed.

At the same time, a black cloak unfolded itself from thin air, a chatelaine belt tinkled, and dark curls, pale skin and a deerstalker flew in a passing breeze as Puer Magi and detective crashed with Puella Magi. Howls of wraiths echoed around the Witch, for there was nothing else she could be now, not with the corpse of a cat-like being hanging from her left hand and the other stretched, screaming: “ _Watson_ -!”

A white blur crashed into the pair, Sherlock rolling from John’s embrace into the entrance of Heathrow International Airport, and the blur followed him through the automatic glass doors.

 _We meet at last, William Sherlock Scott Holmes,_ the cat tilted its head. _I am the Incubator, Ebay. You have met John Hamish Watson and Mycroft Holmes, my contractees._

“Telepathy...?” Sherlock mumbled, almost to himself. “John?”

“Not now, Sherlock,” John answered.

“John,” the Puella Magi echoed. “John... John, I came back for you. John?”

 _The third and last of my charges,_ Ebay commented. _As you might have guessed, Homura Akemi, neither my contracted nor I are from this world._

From above, a flash of purple hefted a sniper’s rifle, aimed.

 _That is the power of the Puella Magi before you,_ Ebay pronounced. _You can change our fates, William Sherlock Scott Holmes._

Red strings shot from beneath the cloak, ripping apart mid-air rifles as they twirled to capture John, caught off-guard.

“John!” Sherlock rounded on the alien. “Help him!”

 _I lack the capability,_ Ebay dispassionately replied. _You can save your friend with what I offer; magic to fight magic._

“No!” John shouted, unknowing and uncaring that he was trapped. “Don’t make the contract!”

A red string shot out, catching neatly around Sherlock’s neck to tighten like a noose. Standing at the dock, Sherlock Holmes faced her, verdigris eyes to verdigris; one narrowed in defiance and pain, the other wide and dispassionate, both mirrors of each other.

“Shirley Holmes,” the Puella Magi whispered. “Hello.”

Without a single look, without even knowing anything more, the tapestry had been unfurled within the mind palace, tying those dead eyes and cold expressions towards a personal fate.

“I wish-”

The red strings tightened, John bellowing, rushing towards Sherlock, Sherlock who cringed in on himself as John drew a knife and began hacking at the string that held Sherlock’s throat.

She screamed, and with them the clash of a thousand shuttles and the fraying of threads. Curtained in the gauzy ends, the detective looked up to the heavens, towards the flash of purple.

_Anomaly, anomaly..._

Ebay’s eyes shifted, huge and true as verdigris turned to gold, a black coat billowed out, and another crystal formed within violinist’s fingers.

“None of this is real.”

The threads snap.


	11. Epilogue: Coda

Harlequin spins around Columbine; the black diamond patterns on red beginning to twirl around the blue and white centrepiece.

A deerstalker floats through galaxies and in its wake a mound of flying shuttles that cross, tie and link, a colourless cloth of destiny. Within this skein of life was the scarlet thread of murder.

“You are what would happen when he dies. You are me.”

“Shirley Holmes.”

“Sherlock Holmes.”

The deerstalkers bobbed in greeting of each other. Around them, London lay in ruins and fires, Big Ben’s echo ringing in greeting as flying shuttles hovered. In the wreckage, they were alone, detective to detective, person to person, Magi to Magi.

“This has never been the cases. It has always been the story; our story.”

“Our story,” Shirley echoed. “Shall we set it right?”

Verdigris eyes flicked over the ruins of London, where buried somewhere would be a top hat and an umbrella, a gun and John. “I can’t imagine any other story.”

“Neither can I.”

“No Incubators this time round.”

“Agreed. Ebay sucks.”

Yet, as the strings retied and rewound, somewhere, a smile and a wrongly tied knot made true the existence of a dark angel, somewhere in a far off world. Revenge, after all, can come in many different forms, and the perfect vehicle of vengeance was the dark angel by which Holmes had used to end the fates, strings spiralled into... H&W.

* * *

Over the deserts of Afghanistan, Sherlock Holmes laid, resting. His eyes never opened as blood spattered his form and beside him, John Watson stumbled, covered in the same ichor.

“You git,” John snarled, ripping up his own sleeves to mop at Sherlock’s sternum. “Why’d you get yourself shot?”

“Bored,” mumbled the reply. “Ouch!”

“Yeah, well, boredom is no reason for pain,” John sighed. Somehow, within their great argument, all is well.

* * *

“Merlin, _really_?”

“The goblin wasn't my fault! Honest!”

“Yes, please. If you weren't the cause of it, it must involve you somehow.”

“...Arse.”

* * *

A single hydrangea flutters. Wreaths of blues and greens surrounded two graves, the mausoleum of the celebrated actor couple within, dead and died happy.

_Fellow stranger_ , the joined tombstone reads. _I am to see to it that I do not lose you_.

* * *

Red thread loops around two girls somewhere in a wide world where the sun may or may not shine, the skies may or may not change, and the only constant is the flat they live in, surrounded by masks of men and women alike, and in one odd case an otter and a hedgehog.

Columbine stands alone, draped in blue and white. Strings lead from her form to the frame, upon which the Clown makes his marionette dance.

Another frame enters the picture. It leads to Harlequin, who cuts a fine figure of red and black.

Harlequin does not dance. The harlequin improvises, snatching Columbine from her strings and stealing her away into the night, Pantaloon and the Clown giving chase all the while with Pierrot hot on their heels. Harlequin and Columbine dance and dance, until finally the swath comes; trickster and girl lie side by side, falling together.

Here, though the worlds explode, these two survive. Worlds upon worlds, forever eighteen ninety-five.

The curtain falls.

* * *

**_Fini._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s much harder than we imagine to write a Puella Magi fic. For one thing, the sheer amount of research involved makes the Wiki look scant on information. For another thing, the original Madoka Magica played on many themes, by which any classic story could be utilised.
> 
> The theme I chose here is Harlequinade, or the Commedia d’art. What it refers to is a fixed cast of members, involving a inamorato and inamorata, assisted by servants Harlequin, Columbine and Pierrot, being sabotaged by the Clown and Puchinello, and usually there’s a policeman chase scene. The Harlequinade is one that touched on the many social themes of the 17th and 18th centuries. Compare Sherlock: fixed cast, falling on the wrong side of the law, the story being more about the detective and his interactions with a dash of cases. Harlequinade is a surprisingly suitable theme for Sherlock, especially in celebration of the Sherlock fandom.  
> Thus, to celebrate Potterlock, Performance in a Leading Role (MadLori) and the multiple alternate universes that cover the Sherlock fandom, this is a tribute around the scarlet thread of murder in the colourless skein of life. Why not add a little art jargon, indeed.
> 
> Please review!


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